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What if I told you there was a place where you could buy toilet paper, clothing, groceries, gasoline, get an oil change and deposit a check or open a bank account? Well, there is such a place. It is just not in the US because "rebuffed in the United States, Wal-Mart gets the go-ahead for bank in Mexico." So would you want to bank at the same place where they sell Pringles and ground beef? Apparently, Mexico is open to the idea and for their sake, I hope things work out.

From the International Herald Tribune:

MEXICO CITY: Public opposition has all but killed a Wal-Mart plan to open its own bank in the United States. But in Mexico, the retailer's push for a bank is sailing through.

The Finance Ministry has given final approval for the bank, said Wal-Mart de México on Wednesday. The bank would begin operating during the second half of 2007. Julio Gómez Martínez, the former chief executive of Bank One in Mexico, will lead the independent unit, to be called Banco Wal-Mart de México Adelante.

One possible reason for the different receptions in the United States and Mexico is that, by most estimates, as many as 80 percent of Mexicans do not have bank accounts. Because Wal-Mart plans to offer such accounts, local groups apparently had difficulty trying to stir up public outrage.

Working-class Mexicans have been largely shut out of traditional banks by high fees, minimum balance requirements and intimidating paperwork. Community banks barely exist.

In this venture, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, still might be the little guy, at least for now. Among Wal-Mart's competitors in the banking business are global banks like Citigroup and HSBC, which have made almost no effort to attract the vast bulk of working- class Mexicans.

The authorities, beginning with the governor of the Mexican central bank, Guillermo Ortiz, have blessed the entry of retailers into banking as a way to reach people without accounts.

In its statement last week announcing that Wal-Mart, along with four other banks, had received preliminary approval, the Finance Ministry said that it expected the new banks to create more competition and serve markets that the country's five dominant banks ignore.

In the United States, Wal-Mart's application for an industrial bank is frozen. The company said that it wanted the bank to process credit card transactions. But community banks in the United States and even larger banks joined the usual Wal-Mart foes like unions, labor activists, small merchants and community groups to oppose the bank.

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