What Walmart Can Learn From a Failed British Banking Experiment
The world’s biggest retailer is going where others have gone (and failed) before: financial services. It’ll need a different playbook.
The Bank of Walmart.
Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
In spring 2009, as the world reeled from the financial crisis, Terry Leahy, then chief executive officer of Tesco Plc, set out a bold ambition: to transform Britain’s biggest retailer into the “People’s Bank.”
With many lenders’ reputations tarnished, Tesco and rival J Sainsbury Plc spotted an opportunity to capitalize on the trust in their grocery brands and capture a slice of the U.K. banking market. But the two overshot. Fast forward a decade, and Tesco has retrenched from offering mortgages and current accounts. Sainsbury is considering a sale of its bank.