Wal-Mart's First Financial Product, a Mastercard

I expect more financial products to roll out in the near future, hopefully including high interest savings accounts and GICs with rates to challenge the likes of Ally, Canadian Tire Bank, and Presidents Choice Financial. In the meantime, they have issued their own Mastercard and you can read about it here. More details are at Wal-Mart's site here.

Wal-Mart Gets Retail Banking Approval in Canada

This week Wal-Mart received final approval to offer retail banking services in Canada. Their official launch is on June 15, and they've been tight lipped about it so far. I'm hoping that we will see something like the convenient online access provided by Ally along with savings rates to match. Maybe this will finally light a fire under the likes of ING Direct and PC Financial whose rates have been very sadly lacking of late.

Also in recent news, credit unions have been given the green light to go national, leaving their provincial borders behind if they so choose. If they do elect to do this, they will have to adopt CDIC insurance, and its $100K limit. I hope that the online Manitoba credit unions such as Achieva, MAXA, and Outlook don't go national as we already have access to them for deposits, and their insurance is unlimited.