Wal Mart, your friendly, local banker

Fascinating news came out today, intertwined with the weekly "Bank Failure Friday".

To wit:

"The last failure of the evening was 122-year-old SolutionsBank [6] of Overland Park, Kansas. As of September 30, SolutionsBank had total assets of $511.1 million and total deposits of approximately $421.3 million. Arvest Bank of Fayetteville, Arkansas assumed all of the deposits of SolutionsBank without paying a premium to the FDIC."

But this is where it gets good:

"Arvest is owned by the family of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. It has twice bid unsuccessfully for failed banks in an effort to break into the Kansas City market, the Kansas City Star reports [7]. With 220 branches spread over Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas, Arvest is already a regional player that thanks to the misfortunes of others just got a bit bigger."

As any banker would tell you, Wal Mart has been trying desperately and for some time to get into banking. They owned Arvest and now it just grew further, by a little over a half billion dollars.

You see, if Wal Mart can be its own bank, it will save at least millions more dollars on its own banking but then also make more money--no doubt yet more millions--by doing that banking business, too.

So you see, boys and girls, Wal Mart really will one day own and rule the world.

Bwha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Link to additional information:
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3708382