PHOENIX – The arguments about mixing commerce and banking at Wal-Mart may be raging in Washington and in Utah, but credit unions here, in Ohio and Massachusetts continue to expand their footprint in retail stores.

The biggest expansion by far is that of the $2.7 billion Desert Schools Federal Credit Union of Phoenix which is making plans for seven in-store branches in Arizona during 2007.

It already has 19 facilities in Wal-Mart stores, having opened its first in metropolitan Phoenix in January 2004. Desert Schools ranks as the biggest CU player in the Wal-Mart financial network. Only a large Houston bank, Woodforest National, is thought to have more of the in-store facilities at Wal-Mart, which declines to formally identify its store participants by name.

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