How the Walmart MoneyCard works?

About two years ago, Walmart teamed up with Green Dot and Commonwealth, for a prepaid card savings program.

On Thursday (April 4), the company announced that customers “have moved more than $2 billion through the program’s virtual Vault, a safe and accessible way to save money through the Walmart prepaid MoneyCard.”

Customers can also win money using the program.

“It all starts with the Vault. Customers with a Walmart MoneyCard can put up to $500 in a virtual Vault for safekeeping. Once the money is in the Vault, each dollar earns an entry for one of 1,000 cash prizes every month (one grand prize of $1,000 and 999 $25 prizes),” Walmart said.

Walmart said the cash prizes encourage customers to build savings habits.

“When customers use the Walmart MoneyCard Vault, their savings increase by 35 percent on average, and we have seen a 274 percent usage increase since we announced the Vault two years ago,” the company said.

Walmart Senior Vice President of Services and Digital Acceleration Daniel Eckert said the $2 billion mark is an important one.

“The fact that customers have moved $2 billion through the MoneyCard Vault is an important milestone,” Eckert said. “I’m proud of what we’ve been able to do to help Americans save and become more financially secure in the past two years, and I can’t wait to see what the next two years (and beyond!) bring.”

In other Walmart news, FinTech Affirm said in February that it linked with Walmart to offer Affirm as an alternative to cash and traditional credit at nearly 4,000 of Walmart’s Supercenters all around the country.

The companies said in a statement that as part of the partnership that customers would also have the option to pay for their purchases over time — at brick-and-mortar locations and Walmart.com.

The payment terms — for purchases spanning $150 to $2,000 — will stretch over three, six or 12 monthly installments, and consumers are shown the repayment amounts that will be due each month (with no hidden or late fees), with interest charges displayed in dollars and cents rather than what the companies said might otherwise be “hard to calculate interest rates.” To complete a purchase, consumers are offered a barcode that is scanned in store by a Superstore associate.