Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, announced Tuesday, Oct 29, it has extended its existing relationship with financial services provider Green Dot to develop a FinTech accelerator under the name “Tailfin Labs.”
In a press release, the American multinational retailer giant said that the Walmart majority-owned fintech accelerator was designed to help startups develop solutions by integrating omnichannel shopping with technology-enabled solutions. The company also revealed that the product may help extend Walmart’s tech shopping tools by using FinTech solutions built on top 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 Vice President at 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 omnichannel retail and tech-enabled financial services,” he added.
The relationship between Walmart and Green Dot can be traced back to 2006 when the two entered into an agreement to create the Walmart MoneyCard, a reloadable prepaid card that works similar to a check card or debit card. To date, the MoneyCard now stands as the leading retailer exclusive prepaid account program in the U.S, Tech Crunch reported.
In a separate statement, Steve Streit, founder, and CEO of Green Dot, also shared his delight with the new sets of agreement.
In a released statement, Mr. Streit said:
“Green Dot is extremely proud and honored to both extend our MoneyCard partnership for many years and to additionally enter into an entirely new equity partnership with Walmart in the creation of a fintech accelerator.”
“We believe the combination of Walmart’s unmatched retail ecosystem with Green Dot’s innovative and highly flexible BaaS platform, which enables the world’s largest technology and consumer brands to address their consumers with bespoke financial products and services, has the opportunity to create and bring to market many new and exciting innovations over the years to come,” he continued.
