Wal-Mart to end layaways.

(From AFX Europe (Focus))

(AFX) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will end layaway service this year due to falling demand and rising costs, scrapping a tradition started when Sam Walton founded the chain in 1962 catering to cash-strapped rural shoppers in northwest Arkansas.

Wal-Mart said Thursday it will stop accepting layaway items Nov. 19 with a pickup deadline of mid-December. In its layaway program, customers make a down payment to hold an item and then generally had up to 60 days to pay it off, with a shorter deadline in the peak Christmas season.

Layaway services are used mainly by people at the lowest end of the income scale, who don't have credit …