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...residents, has survived all kinds of competition. The rural bank has remained independently owned for its entire 83 years, even through the Great Depression, says Dan Coup, its president and CEO. But Coup is worried that his bank may not survive what he sees on the horizon: Wal-Mart. "They could run us out of business in a heartbeat...
Coup is one of the community bankers who have turned a routine regulatory application into a referendum on the world's biggest retailer. Wal-Mart submitted a filing last July asking the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the agency that guarantees bank deposits, to create a new entity called Wal-Mart Bank. It won't be a regular bank at all; the company says it will do nothing but process credit- and debit-card payments internally. But the application generated so many comment letters--3,600 and counting--that for the first time in its history, the FDIC decided...
...session last week near Washington attracted a parade of Wal-Mart's regular adversaries--unions, corporate activists, small-business owners--along with bankers, individuals and experts on both sides. But most comments came from rural America, so the agency will hold another session next week in Overland Park, Kans. Coup will testify there, along with other bankers who believe that their businesses will soon be the next to feel the weight of Wal-Mart...
...think about a Wal-Mart Bank with ATMs, branches and tellers. Jane Thompson, who would be chairman of Wal-Mart Bank, says the new bank would have a "very narrow role." Currently, every time a customer swipes a credit or debit card, Wal-Mart pays a fee to a bank for watching over the money for those few seconds as it moves between the customer's account and Wal-Mart's. By using its own bank, the company will save fractions of a penny on each transaction, yielding $5 million to $10 million a year, which it says...
...India, which it hails as one of the world's most enticing growth markets. In January, the Indian government gave upscale retailers a further boost by allowing foreign companies to own a controlling interest of 51% in joint ventures operating "single-brand" stores. Although multinational chains like Wal-Mart and Tesco remain effectively barred from India, the move is expected to make the country more appealing to retailers like Nike and Cartier that sell their brands in exclusive outlets. "I am very, very optimistic about India," says Xavier Bertrand, India general manager for Chanel...