✒ A good timing for Walmart to step further into financial services as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has just approved new rules that will make it easier for non-banks to get into banking.

The company has a huge customer base to sell financial products to, has access to plenty of financial information about its customers thanks to the debit/credit cards offered by third party, and has a broad physical footprint for customers to perform simple transactions such as cashing cheques and transferring money.

Financial Times comments that whatever the plan is, there is no doubt Walmart hopes to emulate the success of do-it-all Chinese super apps such as Alibaba — China’s biggest online retailers and financial service providers operating through Ant Group.