Walmart Diversification Goes Into Overdrive With Goldman Hires

Walmart Diversification Goes Into Overdrive With Goldman Hires

Walmart 's latest hires are big news in retail, and in banking.

Executives who helped Goldman Sachs build its Marcus consumer-banking platform are joining Walmart's nascent financial-technology venture, The Wall Street Journal reported.

It isn't yet clear precisely what this venture will be doing. Often merchants have entered payments and banking as a path to cost savings, sometimes in payment processing. But this is shaping up to be something well beyond that.

One of Walmart's broader strategies lately has been to diversify its profit base as it looks to grow operating income faster than its revenue base. Other efforts have included the third-party marketplace platform on its website, its fledgling Walmart+ subscription service and online advertising.

A lot of attention may be on Walmart and whether it pursues a banking charter of some kind, but that may be beside the point. In the fintech world, alliances with banks are common, and Walmart has said fintech