Sam’s Club joined the OTC Network on August 26, 2026, giving eligible health-plan members another place to spend restricted benefits and rewards. The commercial opportunity runs in two directions: a retailer can compete for plan-funded purchases, while InComm Payments can offer health plans a broader acceptance network. [S01]

The change covers physical U.S. clubs for Sam’s Club members with participating plan-sponsored cards. Purchases remain subject to the plan’s eligibility rules, and Scan & Go transactions are excluded. This is healthcare-benefit acceptance, not general acceptance of every third-party gift card. [S01]

The businesses on either side of the checkout

Sam’s Club is Walmart’s membership warehouse division. Its corporate profile describes more than 600 clubs across the United States and Puerto Rico. Its retail proposition combines a curated product range with services and membership benefits, so another usable payment source can matter to both shopping frequency and the perceived usefulness of membership. The latter is our commercial interpretation, not a measured result of this agreement. [S03]

InComm Payments supplies payment technology across retail and other sectors. Its healthcare division sells health plans a way to combine several benefit balances on a card while applying spending restrictions. The division says it serves more than 1,200 health and wellness plans and reaches 10 million cardholders. Those are figures for the healthcare division, not the number now eligible to shop at Sam’s Club. [S02]

Why acceptance is the asset

A benefit balance has limited practical value if a recipient cannot use it where they shop. Adding a retail destination makes the network more useful without requiring the health plan to increase the allowance. For InComm, that broader utility can support its pitch to existing plans and prospective customers. The release does not disclose any plan contract won because of this addition.

For Sam’s Club, the likely opportunity is to capture eligible grocery, over-the-counter and wellness purchases that might otherwise happen elsewhere. A new payment method can remove an obstacle to that spending. It cannot establish incremental sales by itself: some members may simply use benefit funds for a purchase they would already have made.

That substitution matters to the economics. Higher benefit-card volume is not automatically additional retailer revenue, and retailer revenue is not automatically higher profit. The parties have not published a forecast separating new visits, changes in basket size and spending shifted from another payment method.

Controls remain part of the product

InComm’s product documentation describes a card that can hold several health-related benefits, with purchases checked against the relevant programme. Acceptance therefore depends on more than recognising a retailer’s name: the item, plan and checkout route still matter. [S02]

Our assessment is that this is where the restricted-spend infrastructure earns its commercial relevance. A retailer gains access to a defined funding source, while the plan retains control over what it will pay for. Removing those controls would change the proposition rather than merely make checkout more convenient.

For the wider gift card and rewards industry, the connection is the value of distribution and redemption infrastructure. The important difference is the purpose of the balance: a health-plan benefit is governed by programme conditions and should not be described as an unrestricted retail gift.

What the announcement leaves open

The companies disclose no revenue-sharing terms, merchant fees, incremental sales or retention results. InComm’s stated objective is to make benefits easier for plan members to use; the financial return to either company remains unquantified. The confirmed development is an additional acceptance channel, with a specific exclusion at mobile Scan & Go checkout. [S01]