Re:US proposes barring tech companies from offering financia...
by theuly on Thursday July 25, 2019 @11:25AM
(#20526178)
Walmart doesn't own its own bank, but in Arkansas, I've seen this bank next to and within Walmarts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvest_Bank
which is owned by the Waltons. They only seem to be in Arkansas though, which is less scalable than the entire internet.
Re:US proposes barring tech companies from offering financia...
by scarface74 on Thursday July 25, 2019 @06:57PM
(#20530664)
So by disallowing Walmart - that caters to a lower income demographic - from operating financial services, how is that going to help the same underserved population that the banks don’t want to cater to?
Ideally this legislation would also prevent Walmart from minting their own currency or opening up their own bank (conveniently placed in their stores and available on their website). My understanding is that Walmart is more like Amazon-plus-physical-stores at this point; they do not yet provide their own bank. If they did, maybe they could be cast as a "tech company".
IMHO, the concern over privacy is _my_ concern; I'm not sure it's something this piece of legislation is worried about. Based on the article it seems like the concern here is more about Facebook creating their own currency and less about consolidation of people's private data. I would guess no one in government likes Bitcoin much and it's one saving grace is it's lack of widespread popularity among the general population. Facebook could conceivable make Libra so easy to use that it could turn into a real thing.