Barclays is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London. It is a universal bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending and credit cards. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories and has around 48 million customers.
Barclays is organized into four core business: Personal & Corporate (Personal Banking, Corporate Banking, Wealth & Investment Management), Barclaycard, Investment Banking and Africa.
Barclays traces its origins to a goldsmith banking business established in the City of London in 1690. James Barclay became a partner in the business in 1736. In 1896 several banks in London and the English provinces, including Backhouse's Bank and Gurney's Bank, united as a joint-stock bank under the name Barclays and Co. Over the following decades Barclays expanded to become a nationwide bank. In 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash dispenser. Barclays has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including of London, Provincial and South Western Bank in 1918, British Linen Bank in 1919, Mercantile Credit in 1975, the Woolwich in 2000 and the North American operations of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Barclays has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
According to a 2011 paper by Vitali et al., Barclays was the most powerful transnational corporation in terms of ownership and thus corporate control over global financial stability and market competition with AXA and State Street Corporation taking the 2nd and 3rd position, respectively.
Operations
Barclays' operations are organised within two business 'clusters': Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Investment Management; and Retail and Business Banking. The Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Investment Management cluster comprises three business units: Corporate banking; Investment banking; and Wealth and investment management. The Retail and Business Banking cluster comprises four business units: Africa Retail and Business Banking; Barclaycard (credit card and loan provision); Europe Retail and Business Banking; and UK Retail and Business Banking.
Principal divisions and subsidiaries
Barclays' principal divisions and subsidiaries include:
Branches and ATMs
Barclays has over 4,750 branches in about 50 countries and of which about 1,600 are in the United Kingdom. In the UK Barclays also offers some personal banking services through branches of the Post Office. Most Barclays branches have 24/7 ATMs. Barclays customers and the customers of many other banks can use Barclays ATMs for free in the UK, although in some other countries fees are charged. Barclays is a member of the Global ATM Alliance, an alliance of international banks which allows each banks' customers to use their ATM or debit card at all other member banks with no ATM access fees when travelling internationally.
Senior management
The chairman is John McFarlane, who joined the Board on 1 January 2015 and became chairman at the annual general meeting on 23 April 2015. McFarlane became executive chairman on 8 July after the dismissal of Group Chief Executive Antony Jenkins.
On 28 October 2015 Barclays announced that Jes Staley, managing partner at BlueMountain Capital and member of the board of directors of UBS, has been appointed as Group Chief Executive Officer of Barclays effective 1 December 2015.
Executive Committee
The current members of Barclays' Executive Committee are:
Board of directors
The current members of Barclays' board of directors are:
Sponsorships
A Barclays Cycle Hire docking station in central London
Barclays sponsored the Premier League from 2001 to 2016 (from 2001 to 2004 under the Barclaycard brand) and, from 2006, the Churchill Cup. All three governing bodies of the permanent participants agreed to end the tournament after its 2011 edition. Barclays also sponsored The Football League from 1987 until 1993, succeeding Today newspaper and being replaced by Endsleigh Insurance. It also sponsored the 2008 Dubai Tennis Championships.
Barclays was the sponsor of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme in London from 2010 to 2015, as part of a £25 million deal with Transport for London.
| Status | |
| Foundation Year | 2003 |
| License | FSA UK (#124247, #119184, #139258) |
| Trading Platforms | Barclays web trading platform, Barclays CFDs, Barclays Financial Spread Trading, International Trader, Covered Warrants, BARXdirect Equities, Turbos |
| Reliability Rate | ААА+ |
| Authorised Capital | |
| Brocker Fee | |
| Exchange Fee | |
| Withdrawal Fee | |
| Minimum Deposit | 2500 |
| Mobile Trading |
| Phone: | 0800 279 6551 |
| Address: | Tay House 300 Bath Street Glasgow, G2 4LH United Kingdom |
| Website: | https://www.barclaysstockbrokers.co.uk/ |
It took me 27 days (12/06/15 - 08/0715) to try to open an account with Barclays Stockbrokers. I decided to cancel it in the end, because I didn’t want to be stuck with the sloppy service, if anything went wrong with the trading account. Customer service was very polite, the execution was horrible though. First of all, I was required to apply by post and needed extra documentation, instead of applying online, because I am an EU citizen. I sent in the application pack, received an e-mail notification saying that I need to send in extra verification. After calling customer service to enquire about the situation, they told me that they needed another document, as they couldn’t use the same file twice to confirm details. So I got a bill certified by one of their branches and sent it in again. This basically went on all the time, with things keep being amiss with my application, which I had to find out by calling customer service to fix. E-mail notifications were unhelpful and these stopped coming in towards the end as well. So I ended up having to try to log-in to the MarketMaster account and call the company if it didn’t work. All in all, customer service was very polite, however, execution was horrible. Wasted a lot of my time and effort to try and set up an account. Definitely succeeded in conveying the message that they don’t care about individual customers. Would not recommend their services and hope that others get better treatment, as I am aware that this might just be a single case.
  westbeech   2016/10/04 13:41    
Im financial ruiened by this barclays stockbrokers ,im in miserie they recomend and open an online account and i did not knew anything about financials or how they oprate the account put in available to invest , and at one point 3 times over for 9 months we lost 180 .000 all our money because of this guys advise and greed when i asked to remove the available to invest they refused it but when i lost everything they removed , and the rules says you only have aviailable to invest if you sign a direct debit, i did not sign it but still they put in thye avilable to invest ,Was to good to make 40 pounds after 3 days plus interests ,nasty peoples no m,atter how many complains i made come to nothing .I spoke to FSA and urge everybody to do dresame looks like the FSA is not aware of many of their activities .
  maria_freitas   2016/10/04 13:41    
Ladies and Gents, there are hundreds of Stockbrokers out there, there is absolutely NO justification to use Barclays. You're probably thinking that being a big, 'reliable' brand that your funds will somehow be in safer hands. Simply the opposite is true. All it means is that these guys are experts in ripping you off and fobbing you off, transposing all their knowledge from retail banking into stockbroking. I fully support all the other Barclays complaints mentioned in previous reviews but to boot, for me, I have lost about £400 in charges ALONE thanks to their cleverly deceptive layout which misleads you as to what you owe and what you're being charged for. Just stay away from them. Only once I was stung on more than one occasion did I stop and question: Why did I go with these guys? Then I realised that it's your natural inclination to trust companies like Barclays because they're a household name. However in this industry that's all the more reason to stay away from them. Parasites.
  Snoopjb69   2016/10/04 13:41    
I'v had three years of bs of these guys DO NOT OPEN A ACCOUNT,The CFD's are a mirror site of City Index with wider spreads,Live charts freeze for fun and the news is hit and miss. Barx well award winning it is but not for the right reasons i'v had so called live data still feeding in at 8pm and London closed at 4.30 pm and this happend over 3 Os XP, Vista and Windows 7 also across 4 different PC's. The News updates 10-15 mins after the time stamp YOU are the last to know whats going on. The price on the level 2 screen is nealy alway different to the ticket price i can not trust this sysem or the customer service.(Now Braclays has admitted the fault is at there end funny nealy 3 years for that.) So Please think before you open a account you have been warned.
  thundercat   2016/10/04 13:41    
I won't go into details but I could tell you about the time they lost £26k of mine (long story!) and it took them 2 and a half months to find it. In the meantime they sent me the details and account balance of another customer, I bet he was well chuffed...
  nunrgguy   2016/10/04 13:41    
DO NOT OPEN A ACCOUNT WITH THESE PEOPLE THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ON SCREEN INFO WHEN DOING TRADES. CUSTOMER SERVICES JUST REPEAT STANDARD ANSWERS YOU CANNOT GET TO ANYONE WHO CAN MAKE A DECISION! THE COMPLAINTS IS A JOKE TOO! 10 HOURS AFTER COMPLAINING I GOT AM EMAIL TELLING ME THEY WOULD COME BACK TO ME IN 21 DAYS POOR POOR SERVICE I WILL NOW MOVE MY ACCOUNT.
  rucoa   2016/10/04 13:41    
All big nominees lend out shares to shorters for covered shorting . Thats how they can offer dealing at a fiver a throw . Its subsidised by lending out stock and subsequent fees .Barclays have just got caught with more out than the rest . I am with Barclays . I have traded NEW for several years and been completely out and completely in over the period . I usually hold a small token amount all the time (100k shares) All my deals have settled and the deals proceeds credited to my account ( which is what matters ) The right to the paper cert in a suspended share is somewhat tenuous in the circumstances . If you want dealing costs to rise to £30 a trade like the bad old days then ban lending out shares to shorters by your nominees……….. simples .
  WILDRIDES   2016/12/12 14:11    
Complete waste of time! Can't even log on to check my account with Barclays Share Dealing nevermind trade. They have gone downhill considerably in the last year. I'm now looking for another company to use.
  Dick   2017/5/02 15:12