Walmart, Green Dot To Develop FinTech Accelerator With Omnichannel Focus

Walmart and Green Dot have announced that they are going to develop a FinTech accelerator together and call it “TailFin Labs, LLC,” the companies said in a release. The accelerator will create new products, technologies and services that exist in the meeting place of retail shopping and consumer financial services.

The new FinTech accelerator will focus on integrating omnichannel shopping with technology-enabled solutions for consumers and businesses alike. The move will further expand upon Walmart’s tech shopping tools by using FinTech solutions, which will add to Green Dot’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform.

The companies will also continue an ongoing partnership to provide the MoneyCard program for an additional seven years. The new period will start on Jan. 1 of next year. MoneyCard has become the biggest prepaid account program in the United States, the release said.

“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 of 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.”

Steve Streit, founder and CEO of Green Dot, said he’s excited to see what the partnership will mean for both companies in the future.

“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,” Streit said. “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.”