Walmart Launches Walmart2World

Walmart will be launching a global money transfer service called “Walmart2World,” partnering with MoneyGram International.

The new Walmart move will help the retail giant expand its money service, which was launched 4 years ago, serving the United States’ citizens who are currently unbanked.

Walmart2Walmart, which is the company’s US-based platform, lets customers to transfer funds between Walmart locations domestically. Users can send as much as $2,500 at one time.

Meanwhile, the new Walmart2World will enable customers to send funds to people in more than 200 countries.

“We probably really underestimated the impact we could really make in this business, which hasn’t seen a ton of innovation for a long time,” said Kristy Ward, the vice president of Walmart Services.

This new service aims to overtake Walmart’s rivals with speed and cheap, stable prices. Walmart attempts to serve around the 2 billion people, who are considered to be “unbanked” by the World Bank’s Global Findex database. Wire transfers include paying bills and remitting money to families or friends overseas.

Walmart2World will charge a user $4 to send as much as $50; $8 to send amounts between $51 and $1000; and $16 to send $1,001 to $2,500.

Not similar to other international transfer services, Walmart’s fees will be the same regardless of the location of the sender and the receiver.

According to Ward, the key to the service is the “clear and transparent menu-board pricing.”

Walmart2World assures its customers that funds will be delivered in 10 minutes or less, which is comparatively quicker than other services that can take up to 3 days. 

Meanwhile, MoneyGram’s networks all over the world will be assisting regions where Walmart doesn’t have any presence.

The move is expected to increase the foot traffic in Walmart stores, which then could potentially boost sales. 

“We would love for customers to choose who they shop with based on how we can save them money… If they choose to spend their savings in Walmart, that’s fantastic,” Ward said.

Lower than 1 percent of Walmart’s annual net sales come from fuel and financial services. These services include wire and money transfers.

Western Union, MoneyGram, and other such companies have business models that fully revolve around this idea.

On the other hand, Amazon.com, an e-commerce giant, is reportedly planning to take a different approach in trying to reach potential shoppers who don’t have bank accounts. According to a report last month, Amazon was in discussions with financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase, in a move to launch “checking-account-like-products.” This was reportedly aimed at younger and unbanked customers.

Walmart2World is set to kick off to all of Walmart’s 4,700 US stores, on Walmart.com, and to the Walmart mobile app in the latter part of this month.

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