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Save Money. Live Better

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Wal-Mart’s slogan is “Save Money. Live Better.” Just don’t do your banking there. Check-out this WSJ analysis:

On a rainy morning in April, Anna Proctor entered a Wal-Mart Supercenter near some of this city’s poorest areas to get $300 for urgent car repairs—money she didn’t have.

Inside, she joined a line at a Woodforest National Bank branch and intentionally overdrew her account. When her paycheck was deposited 12 days later, she said, the bank would take the borrowed sum plus a $30 fee.

“It’s cheaper than a payday loan,” said Ms. Proctor, a 35-year-old customer-service worker. If her overdraft and fee were calculated as a loan, the annual percentage-rate interest, or APR, would be over 300%. She said she overdraws “all the time.”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc is known as a low-cost retailer, but customers of some of the independent banks inside its outlets are among America’s highest payers of bank fees—a large chunk of which come from overdraft charges.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of federal filings found that the five banks with the most Wal-Mart branches, including Woodforest, ranked among the top 10 U.S. banks in fee income as a percentage of deposits in 2013. Other banks among the top 10 serve the U.S. military, as the Journal reported in a January page-one article.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.