Laws can be changed. An entity like Amazon can lobby for a change. Donate money to politicians likely to vote for a change. Call for a change on the editorial page of the Washington Post. Remember, once upon a time, there was but one phone company. Then the law changed... Interstate/branch banking was illegal. Then the law changed. Amazon could probably set up a members-(i.e., customers) only credit union without too much difficulty.

>Despite the pain, I still think Walmart should’ve acquired and rebranded a bank, and offered financial products.

I just wanted to point out that this was actually significantly more difficult than the parent comment may have realized.

That was deregulated by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 and likely led to the subprime mortgage crisis. It permitted the creation of the "too big to fail" superbanks.

How did Sears do it with Discover, or is this a recent thing?

I was able to find the law I was thinking of, and it was passed in 1956, so not terribly recent, no.

Apparently it's because the BHCA defines banks as entities marketing both checking accounts and commercial loans, and Discover Bank makes no commercial loans and is thus not, under the terms of that law, technically an actual bank.

(Also, apparently the BHCA restricts banks from operating across state lines, too.)

So Walmart could offer checking accounts as long as they don’t lend.

Yep. I thought the law was more restrictive than it was.