Wal-Mart Applies to Form Utah ILC

Jenifer Nil reports for the Deseret News that Wal-Mart applied yesterday afternoon to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions to establish a Utah industrial bank that would process credit card, debit card and electronic check transactions.

The company currently uses a third-party processor for the transactions. Bringing the operation in-house will save Wal-Mart a "significant" amount of money every year, Whitchurch said. He declined to specify how much money would be saved.

"It will be a significant savings when you add up the fractional savings on millions and hundreds of millions of transactions that can be paid to Wal-Mart Bank instead of a money center bank," said Alan Whitchurch, a University of Utah graduate and 20-year banking veteran who comes to Wal-Mart by way of Merrill Lynch Bank.