Walmart is building a Super App that can change FinTech forever 📲; FinTech champion Wise is one step closer to becoming a bank 😳🏦; The Binance stress test 🪙
FinTech is Eating the World, 19 December
Hey Everyone,
Good morning! Due to technical difficulties Monday’s issue is coming out today. But it’s definitely worth the wait as we’re looking at Walmart which is building a Super App that can change FinTech forever (will unbundle the Walmart Bank & focus on why Walmart Super App could be huge), FinTech champion Wise which is now one step closer to becoming a bank (steal their strategy!), and the Binance stress test (with a focus on some lessons to learn). Let’s just jump straight into the hot stuff:
Walmart is building a Super App than can change FinTech forever 📲
The launch 🚀 Last week I covered Walmart WMT 0.00%↑ going deeper into FinTech and bringing its Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) product in-house. As it was noted, this development not only allows the retail giant to bring more revenues from its BNPL (=lending) activities, grab a bigger market share and capitalize on the growing BNPL interest.
More importantly, it ties in very nicely with their long-term vision - the Walmart Bank 🏦 The most interesting thing? This seems to be only one part of the story as Walmart’s ultimate goal is to build a Super App.
And it can change FInTech forever. So let’s take a look.
A refresher ♻️ Over the years, Walmart has managed to build a strong FinTech proposition that looks more like a challenger bank than a retail corporation only. Here’s a brief overview of what Walmart currently does in financial services:
Walmart+ is a Prime-like membership offering unlimited free delivery from stores, fuel discounts, and access to tools that make shopping faster for families.
Walmart Credit Card is issued by Capital One and offers 5% cashback at Walmart.com and unlimited rewards everywhere else.
Walmart Pay is a QR-based payment method that links to your debit/credit card.
Walmart Debit Card offers up to $75 cashback per year at Walmart.com, Walmart fuel stations, and stores.
Remittances are offered both in-store (via Western Union & Moneygram) and online (via Moneygram & Ria).
BNPL was first offered via Affirm. Now it’s being brought in-house.
When you put it all together with BNPL (=lending) being brought in-house, Walmart is clearly on the path to becoming one of the biggest banks in the US (maybe the world too?). Without actually being a bank 😳
Zooming out 🔎 Bank is nice but a Super App is much nicer. That seems to be the ultimate strategy and endgame for the retail giant. In fact, we could argue that Walmart is already a Super App to some extent. Their 2022 Annual Report illustrates this quite well:
Why it matters? 🤔 First, not only it could become the first Super App of the West. More importantly, Walmart’s Everything App can change FinTech forever.
Here’s more on that + the takeaway: