Walmart partners with JPMorgan to speed payments to online sellers

By Nupur Anand

NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase and Walmart are partnering to speed up payments for merchants that sell items through the retail giant's website.

The pairing will allow merchants on Walmart's marketplace platform to accept and make payments, while managing cash flow using JPMorgan's systems, said Lia Cao, head of embedded finance and solutions at the largest U.S. bank.

Walmart sells more than 700 million items from 100,000 sellers on its marketplace platform, including beauty products, clothing, home furnishings and electronics. Marketplace sales grew 40% in the fourth quarter, it said.

Companies have been increasingly using so-called embedded finance software to offer financial services directly to customers and businesses.

More than $2 trillion of transaction volume will shift to marketplace platforms and away from traditional retailers and resellers, according to a McKinsey report.

JPMorgan sees the move as a growth opportunity, Cao said. It already has over 20 clients in embedded finance partnerships and expects that to double in the next year, she said.

The partnership with Walmart is only available for U.S. merchants, but the firms are in talks to expand the service into Europe and other regions, Cao said.

(Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York; additional reporting by Siddharth Cavale; editing by Lananh Nguyen and Leslie Adler)