Walmart And Sprint Reportedly Team Up For Strategic Partnership

Years after Sprint’s presence in Walmart had dwindled, the retailer and the wireless carrier appear to the be teaming up. While the exact arrangement is not clear, Sprint Chairman Marcelo Claure mentioned a tie-up in a tweet, Retail Dive reported.

“BIG news for @Sprint today as we’re expanding into 700 @Walmart stores,” Claure wrote in a tweet. In addition, Claure referred to the tie-up as a strategic partnership.

Walmart has long sought to expand its offerings beyond groceries, with the idea of making the retailer a destination for all sorts of products and services. The retailer, for example, has offered healthcare services, along with banking.

In April, Walmart rolled out a new Walmart2World domestic P2P service. The service lets anyone send money from any Walmart-branded channel – at a brick-and-mortar store, from the Walmart.com eCommerce website or via the mobile app – to someone else who could visit any Walmart store and get their funds within 10 minutes for one flat fee based on the amount sent. Consumers sending up to $60 pay a $4 fee, those sending between $60 and $1,000 pay $8 and those sending between $1,000 and $2,500 are charged $16.

When looking at the international remittances market, Walmart Financial Services VP Kirsty Ward had said the fee inconsistencies were more glaring, and had more of an impact on the consumers sending money abroad to help their families pay bills or to aid in an emergency. In both situations, the money being sent is needed immediately, and senders could ill afford to see a big chunk eaten up by fees.

Walmart2World, Ward explained, works exactly the same way – with one twist. The fee structure remains identical regardless of where the sender or recipient lives. Recipients can get their money within 10 minutes of it being sent, and they can now pick up that money at any one of MoneyGram’s 300,000 global agent locations.