Worse Than Wal-Mart

The big banks, who are so dedicated to nickel and diming their customers that Wal-Marthas experienced explosive growth in its check cashing services as people desperately try to find a bank that does not cheat them:

Americans say they are fed up with banks. They are protesting on Wall Street and raising a ruckus over outsize fees. Now there is a surprising beneficiary: Wal-Mart.

Geoffrey Cardone, a 26-year-old factory worker, said he dumped his bank account because he felt that he was being nickeled and dimed by fees. His new payday ritual includes a trip to the Wal-Mart here in northeastern Pennsylvania.

“It’s cheaper,” said Mr. Cardone, who was charged a flat fee of $3 to cash his paycheck. Many check-cashing stores keep a percentage of the check, which tends to be higher.

The Wal-Mart here has a clerk in a brightly painted Money Center near the entrance, like more than 1,000 other Wal-Marts across the country. Customers can cash work and government checks, pay bills, wire money overseas or load money on to a prepaid debit card. At most Wal-Marts without dedicated Money Centers, the financial services are available at the customer service desks or kiosks.

Four years ago, Wal-Mart abandoned its plans to obtain a long-sought federal bank charter amid opposition from the banking industry and lawmakers, who feared the huge retailer would drive small bankers out of business and potentially conflate its banking and retail operations. Ever since, Wal-Mart has been quietly building up à la carte financial services, becoming a force among the unbanked and “unhappily banked,” as one Wal-Mart executive put it.

Even before the recent outcry against banks, the services had become popular with cash-poor customers, many of whom never had a bank account and found the services more affordable than traditional check-cashing operations. Now newcomers to the ranks of the banking disaffected are helping to swell the numbers, Wal-Mart officials said.

Here is the kicker:

In research conducted a year and a half ago, Wal-Mart found that more than 60 percent of the customers using its financial services had bank accounts. When Wal-Mart asked those people how much their banking activities cost them over the last six months, the answer was between $200 and $400, Mr. Eckert said, with overdraft fees, minimum-balance charges and so forth.

 (emphasis mine)

So for the privilege of giving customers ¼% on their own money, money that they then lend to them at 23% as revolving credit, they are also charging them around $500 a year.

Let's see, 500 a year, ¼% … So the break even point is about $200,000.00.

And the VSPs wonder why people hate the banksters.