Walmart to launch fintech accelerator 

Walmart is diving into the fast-growing field of financial technology.

The nation’s largest retailer said it is creating a financial technology (fintech) accelerator—TailFin Labs—to develop  products, services and technologies that “sit at the intersection of retail shopping and consumer financial services.”   

Walmart’s partner on the initiative is Green Dot, which serves as the program manager and issuing bank for the Walmart MoneyCard, which offers FDIC-insured accounts and cash-back rewards on Walmart purchases and other features such as as direct deposit and online bill pay. Launched in 2006, it has grown into the largest retailer-exclusive prepaid account program in the U.S. Walmart also renewed its agreement with GreenDot to serve as the issuing bank for the MoneyCard program for an additional seven years.

The new accelerator will be majority-owned by Walmart. It will  expand upon Walmart’s current suite of omnichannel retail shopping tools by leveraging fintech solutions wrapped around and built atop of Green Dot’s “banking-as-a-service” (BaaS) platform.

“Over the years, Walmart has brought to market many innovative industry-defining financial services offerings to serve our customers – including several introduced through the Walmart MoneyCard program managed by Green Dot,” said Daniel Eckert, senior VP, Walmart Services and Digital Acceleration. “With this expanded relationship, and by leveraging Walmart’s footprint and existing offerings with Green Dot’s cutting-edge capabilities, we’ll be uniquely positioned to offer an unmatched set of customer experiences that sit at the nexus of omni-channel retail and tech-enabled financial services.”