Since the business was established more than 300 years ago, Barclays has grown to offer a range of products and services tailored to meet the specific needs of its customers all over the world.
As a responsible global citizen, Barclays is committed to ensuring the sustainability of the communities in which the business operates, and strives for sustainable relationships with customers and clients worldwide.
Barclays Bank history is as old as the history of the Great British banking industry as a whole. Founded back in the cobbled streeted and oil lamp lit London of the seventeenth century, Barclays has grown and progressed to be a member of the global banking fraternity with operations spreading across all of Europe as well as North and South America, the Middle and the Far East.
The Bank was reputed to have begun its earliest trade’s way back in 1690, when the two founding partners John Freame and Thomas Gould first opened their doors in London. Their first premises were in Lombard Street, where they traded successfully for more than thirty years. One of the most significant events in the bank’s history took place in 1736, when Freame and Gould, obviously feeling that their day’s as bankers might be drawing to a close, invited Freame’s son-in-law, John Barclay to become a partner in the bank.
The bank moved forward all the time, but at a pace befitting the Victorian era. In 1864 Barclays Bank as it was now known moved into even larger premises, but still in Lombard Street, and as the end of the nineteenth century drew close, formed an association with nineteen other privately owned banking operations to form what was to be one of the first joint stock banking groups, to be known as Barclay and Company Ltd. This new group operated a massive 182 branches and boasted liquid assets of £26million, a massive sum for those days. Also in keeping with those times, many of the partners in the new banking group were both conservative and religious, and the bank soon gained the reputation of being a “Quaker Bank” Conservative or not, the bank continued to expand and began to move out of London either by acquiring other banking groups or by opening new branches.
The onset of World War One saw Barclays strongly represented as far north as the Midlands of England. In the year that the war ended, Barclays Bank announced its amalgamation with the London, Provincial and South Western Bank, firmly staking it place to be one of the UK’s leading banking groups. By the middle of the nineteen twenties in England, Barclays had close to two thousand branches in operation in England, and had begun some tentative operations overseas, particularly in the British Colonies.
The company has become embroiled in a number of controversial subjects such as aggressive investment trading, tax avoidance schemes and close relationships with large investors in the Middle East. However, despite worries regarding the UK financial sector Barclays Bank was one of the few self funding operations which was not forced to go cap in hand to the UK government. Many believe that Barclays Bank will emerge from the ongoing economic crisis as one of the stronger European and worldwide banking organisations trading today.
Recent History:
Barclays completes its acquisition of PT Akita, a privately owned bank with ten outlets in three cities in Indonesia. The move makes Indonesia the 15th country to become part of Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking Emerging Markets Business Unit. Barclays opens for business in Pakistan, with branches in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The launch is the 14th emerging market Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking has entered since March 2007. Barclays acquires leading Russian bank Expobank. The bank becomes part of Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking Emerging Markets Business Unit . Barclays is the first bank in the UK to announce a mass roll-out of contactless-enabled debit cards. From March 2009, most Barclays debit cards that are issued or reissued will have contactless technology built in. Barclays is the first bank in the UK to give its Local Business customers access to an online service that checks supplier credit ratings.2009 2009 Barclays Capital competes the integration of the North American businesses of Lehman Brothers which Barclays acquired in September 2008. 2009 Barclays announces its 2008 Full Year Results, reporting profit before tax of £6.1bn. 2008 2008 Barclays acquires Lehman Brothers North American investment banking and capital markets businesses. 2008 2008 2008 2008 Absa, majority-owned by Barclays, becomes the first bank in South Africa to reach one million internet banking users.
