Barclaycard company profile

Who is Barclaycard?

Barclaycard is part of the Barclays Group and has its headquarters in the UK. We are one of Europe's largest multi-brand credit card and consumer lending businesses. In 1966, our credit card was the first to be launched in the UK and we went on to produce the first all-purpose credit card in Europe.

Today, we're still the UK's most recognised brand, with 10 million retail customers. In addition, we're now a rapidly expanding global cards and lending business with 8.8m cards in issue outside of the UK and operations in over fifty countries and four continents.

You can use Barclaycard to pay for goods and services in over 29 million outlets and to withdraw cash from more than 600,000 cash machines and banks worldwide.

What does Barclaycard do?

Barclaycard is a multi-brand personal lending business that offers credit cards, secured loans, marine finance and point-of-sale finance to customers in the UK and across the world.

In the UK

Our primary UK activities include all Barclaycard branded credit cards, the FIRSTPLUS secured lending business and the retail finance business Clydesdale Financial Services.

We also lend our 40-plus years of expertise to some of the biggest retailers in the UK, as part of our expanding partnerships portfolio. Currently, Barclaycard provides card products in partnership with Sky, and has recently announced joint ventures with Thomas Cook and Argos.

Around the world

Barclaycard's international presence is extensive. We currently operate across Europe, the United States, Asia-Pacific, and Africa. In 2006, two-thirds of new cards issued were in overseas markets and we now have 7.6 million cards in issue outside the UK.

In addition, our global partnerships form an exciting part of our expansion strategy. These include Virgin Group in South Africa, Manchester United across Asia-Pacific, SpanAir in Spain, and nearly 50 US card partnerships, including: US Airways, Harvard and Barnes and Noble.

Barclaycard Business

Barclaycard Business processes card payments for retailers and merchants and issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers. It is Europe's number one issuer of Visa Commercial Cards with over 152,000 corporate customers.

We service businesses of all sizes from multi-national companies and government departments to small and medium enterprises.

We are also one of Europe's largest acquirers and processors of plastic card transactions, with over 93,000 retailer and business relationships. In 2006, more than 1.8 billion purchases were made with credit and debit cards through 192,000 Barclaycard Business customer outlets in the UK.