Don’t leave the trailer park without it!
American Express is teaming up with Walmart to offer prepaid debit cards for lower-income shoppers — a radical departure from Amex’s decades-old strategy of cultivating an exclusive, upscale image.
The debit card, called Bluebird, is being targeted at customers who don’t have checking accounts. Nevertheless, it will be accepted at any establishment that accepts Amex cards.
A spokeswoman for Amex — whose Gold and Platinum cards are marketed with offers of access to exclusive venues, events and other pricey perks — declined to comment specifically on the drastic strategic shift toward lower-end consumers.
Industry experts said the Walmart tie-up is a shrewd play to cater to “un-banked” customers — now a growing category as traditional banks continue to tack on more service fees even as the economy remains sluggish.
“This intuitively illogical pairing actually makes perfect sense and is kind of a genius jujitsu move,” said Adam Hanft of Hanft Projects, a consumer marketing and branding firm.
The Bluebird card will give Amex a guaranteed revenue stream that carries no credit risk because it’s prepaid, Hanft noted.
“Any ‘brand damage’ that might injure them through association with lower-income consumers is more than offset by the access to the un-banked and under-banked they are offering,” Hanft added.
The card, which has been tested since March, will be available next week at Walmart stores and online. It requires no minimum monthly balance and has no fees for transactions or overdrafts.
Walmart and Amex said they developed Bluebird partly as a response to customer complaints about growing fees for checking accounts and other traditional banking services.
Yesterday’s announcement sent shares of Green Dot, which currently provides prepaid debit cards for Walmart shoppers, tumbling as much as 20 percent.