Stymied by a phalanx of opponents from big banks to unions and dogged by conflicting messages about its intentions, Wal-Mart withdrew a bid for a banking license Friday and said it would find other ways to serve customers’ financial needs.

The world’s largest retailer withdrew its application to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for a bank charter after nearly two years of what it called “manufactured controversy.”

It was the Bentonville, Ark.-based company’s fourth failure since 1999 to open a bank after previous efforts in Oklahoma, California and Canada were stopped by regulators or lawmakers.

Wal-Mart repeatedly said its latest bid was about payment processing, not branch banking for consumers. It said it wanted to open an industrial bank to save millions of dollars it now pays outside banks to handle credit and debit card payments in its stores.

Supporters said it could help reduce fees and costs for consumers and that the industry is in need of more competition.

But a vocal front of opponents including big and small banks, unions, farmers, convenience store owners and Realtors protested to the FDIC and Congress that Wal-Mart was secretly planning to start branch banking, which they claimed would concentrate too much economic power in one company.

The withdrawal came one day after a Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee accused Wal-Mart of “a pattern of deception and dishonesty” about its banking intentions.

Rep. Paul Gillmor of Ohio released an e-mail that showed Wal-Mart was renegotiating leases with outside banks in its stores to preserve Wal-Mart’s right to offer a range of financial services, including mortgages and loans. Wal-Mart said those lease terms were nothing new.

Wal-Mart’s president of financial services, Jane Thompson, denied that the revelation had anything to do with dropping the bank application.

Thompson said Wal-Mart started thinking about dropping the bid after the FDIC in late January extended a moratorium on all industrial bank applications while Congress debates new legislation on those charters.