Walmart and Green Dot Unveil a FinTech Accelerator

The retail giant Walmart renews their partnership with financial service provider Green Dot. Besides issuing means of payment, they will jointly be building an innovation-focused structure.

Goal: build a FinTech accelerator.
This partnership will lead them to create an acceleration programme for helping start-ups craft solutions, enabling them to rely on a Green Dot’s Banking-as-a-Service platform.
This accelerator called TailFin Labs will be mostly owned by Walmart and aiming for FinTech focusing on BtoB and BtoC retail and financial services.
So far, no indication as to the number of start-ups, selection criteria or programme duration has been provided.
This new agreement should be affective early in 2020, and replace the current agreement.

Growth relay. This accelerator will enable Walmart to boost their skills in addressing omni-channel retail and financial services: means to streamline processes, secure customer loyalty and make their model profitable.
Withstanding competition. Under the impulsion of their new CTO, ex-Amazon, Walmart further aims for the banking industry. Competition intensifies between the leading US retail groups.
Besides, this new agreement entails several opportunities for Green Dot’s Banking-as-a-Service platform that will be made available to FinTechs from this acceleration programme.

Walmart teamed up with Green Dot in 2006. This partnership led to the creation of the Walmart Money Card programme, providing discounts on purchases at Walmart, enabling users to deposit amounts, pay online, etc. Green Dot acts as the issuing bank and manages the prepaid account programme.
Green Dot has been assisting several US giants. For instance, they teamed up with Uber for Uber Money, and on launching a companion credit card alongside their financial services. To this respect an announcement was made just days ago.

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