Walmart Bank. Was the Walmart controversy about the purity of the line between banking and commerce or concerns about the social and political power of Walmart? How is the situation different from the U.K. where a major grocery chain, Tesco, also runs a bank? After Walmart gave up on forming its own bank, it was not, in fact, deterred from placing banking services in its stores. Instead, it entered into partnerships and other prepaid card arrangements with some smaller banks. What, if anything, was achieved by keeping Walmart from owning a bank while permitting its competitor, Target, to do so? For an interesting argument by one academic on how the motivations behind Sams Bank? were actually related to Walmarts goal to decrease its payments-processing costs by issuing its own credit cards, see Ronald Mann, A Requiem for Sams Bank, 83 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 953 (2008). Recent reports that Amazon and J.P. Morgan are entering into a partnership to offer deposits and loans have not generated the same furor. For an argument that the acquisition of ILCs by commercial companies will lead to systemic risk, see Wilmarth, Wal-Mart and the Separation of Banking and Commerce, at 1539. For another example of the fight between the banking sector and big box retailers, see the discussion of the Durbin Amendment in Chapter 7.2.
The assignment is to answer the question provided above in essay form. This is to be in narrative form and should be as thorough as possible. Bullet points should not to be used. The paper should be at least 1.5 – 2 pages in length, Times New Roman 12-pt font, double-spaced, 1 inch margins and utilizing at least one outside scholarly or professional source related to competitive strategy. The textbook should also be utilized. Do not insert excess line spacing. APA formatting and citation should be used.
Requirements: 1.5 pages
