Walmart Debuts New Credit Card Financing

Walmart said Thursday that it is debuting special financing for its credit cards, with no-interest financing plans that work with the Walmart Credit Card and the Walmart Mastercard Credit Card. The plans extend across either six months or 12 months on purchases.

In contrast to traditional financing setups — where the caveat is that the bill must be paid within an agreed-upon period or else interest charges are levied — Walmart has said that while no interest is paid during the aforementioned periods, interest does not accrue.

Walmart said that the six-month period has zero interest tied to purchases made in-store at levels between $150 to $298.99, and on 12 months that tally comes at a threshold of least $299.

In a statement announcing the new financing programs, the Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of Services for Walmart, U.S., said that “the reality is most people’s lives are anything but predictable, and paying off a purchase within a set period of time doesn’t always happen as planned.”

In recent months, the notion of financing purchases on credit cards with some flexibility has taken root.  Late last year, Mastercard linked with BRD-Groupe Societe Generale to bring payment options to cardholders with no interest rates attached across several months.