50 Facts About Barclays

Barclays is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England.

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.

The name "Barclays" became associated with the business in 1736, when Freame's son-in-law James Barclay became a partner.

Between 1905 and 1916, Barclays extended its branch network by making acquisitions of small English banks.

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In 1938, Barclays acquired the first Indian exchange bank, the Central Exchange Bank of India, which had opened in London in 1936 with the sponsorship of Central Bank of India.

In May 1958, Barclays was the first UK bank to appoint a female bank manager.

In 1965, Barclays established a US affiliate, Barclays Bank of California, in San Francisco.

Barclays launched the first credit card in the UK, Barclaycard, in 1966.

Barclays DCO changed its name to Barclays Bank International in 1971.

Barclays introduced the Connect card in June 1987, the first debit card in the United Kingdom.

Barclays bought Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors in 1996 and merged it with BZW Investment Management to form Barclays Global Investors.

Two years later, in 1998, the BZW business was broken up and the Equity and Corporate Finance Divisions were sold to Credit Suisse First Boston: Barclays retained the debt-focused Fixed Income business and Structured Capital Markets which formed the foundation of the rebranded Barclays Capital .

Barclays closed 171 branches in the UK in 2001, many of them in rural communities: Barclays called itself "The Big Bank" but this name was quickly given a low profile after a series of embarrassing PR stunts.

In 2003, Barclays bought the American credit card company Juniper Bank from CIBC, re-branding it as "Barclays Bank Delaware".

Barclays took over sponsorship of the Premier League from Barclaycard in 2004.

In May 2005, Barclays moved its group headquarters from Lombard Street in the City of London to One Churchill Place in Canary Wharf.

Barclays exited retail-banking operations in the Caribbean-region which extended as far back as 1837 through selling of its joint venture stake in FirstCaribbean International Bank to CIBC for between $989 million and $1.

In March 2007, Barclays announced plans to merge with ABN AMRO, the largest bank in the Netherlands.

However, on 5 October 2007 Barclays announced that it had abandoned its bid, citing inadequate support by ABN shareholders.

Barclays sought to raise capital privately, avoiding direct equity investment from the UK government, which was offered to boost its capital ratio.

Barclays believed that "maintaining its independence from government was in the best interests of its shareholders".

Barclays launched a further round of capital raising, approved by special resolution on 24 November 2008, as part of its overall plan to achieve higher capital targets set by the UK's Financial Services Authority to ensure it would remain independent.

On 16 September 2008, Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, the investment-banking and trading divisions of Lehman Brothers which was a United States financial conglomerate that had filed for bankruptcy.

Barclays later confirmed that it rejected the Government's offer and would instead raise £6.

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In July 2012, Barclays revealed that the FSA was investigating whether the bank adequately disclosed fees paid to Qatar Investment Authority.

In March 2009, it was reported that in 2008, Barclays received billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG, including US$8.

On 12 June 2009, Barclays sold its Global Investors unit, which included its exchange-traded fund business, iShares, to BlackRock for US$13.

In October 2012, Barclays announced it had agreed to buy the ING Direct UK business of the ING Group.

Barclays announced in June 2015 that it would sell its US wealth and investment management business to Stifel for an undisclosed fee.

Barclays sold its Retail Banking unit in Spain to CaixaBank in 2014.

In March 2016, it was announced that Barclays has plans to sell its Africa business amid falling profits.

In September 2017, Barclays sold off the last part of its retail banking segment on continental Europe after selling its French retail, wealth and investment management operations to AnaCap.

In December 2020, Barclays was fined £26 million because of the way it treated its customers who fell into debt or experienced financial problems.

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.

In 2007, Barclays agreed a 20-year naming rights agreement for $400 million for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York City, home of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.

Barclays helped to fund President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe.

Barclays provides two of Mugabe's associates with bank accounts, ignoring European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe.

In March 2009, Barclays was accused of violating international anti-money laundering laws.

In March 2009, Barclays obtained an injunction against The Guardian requiring it to remove from its website confidential leaked documents describing how SCM, Barclays' structured capital markets division, planned to use more than £11 billion of loans to create hundreds of millions of pounds of tax benefits, via "an elaborate circuit of Cayman Islands companies, US partnerships and Luxembourg subsidiaries".

Barclays was accused by HMRC of designing two schemes that were intended to avoid substantial amounts of tax.

The United States Department of Justice and Barclays officially agreed that "the manipulation of the submissions affected the fixed rates on some occasions".

In October 2012, the United States Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission informed Barclays they had commenced an investigation into whether the group's relationships with third parties who assist Barclays to win or retain business are compliant with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Barclays had sought to raise capital privately, avoiding direct equity investment from the Government of the United Kingdom and, therefore, a bailout.

On 8 June 2020, Barclays was accused of deceit by a British businesswoman Amanda Staveley's firm PCP Capital.

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In July 2013, US energy regulator the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered Barclays to pay £299 million fine penalty for attempting to manipulate the electricity market in the US.

On 31 January 2016, Barclays settled with both the New York Attorney General's office and the SEC, agreeing to pay $70 million split evenly between the SEC and New York state, admitting it violated securities laws and agreeing to install an independent monitor for the dark pool.

In 2017, Barclays faced protests by environmentalists because of its ownership of Third Energy which planned to extract natural gas using hydraulic fracturing at Kirby Misperton in Yorkshire.

Barclays invested $85 billion in fossil fuel extraction and $24 billion in expansion.

In certain instances, Barclays used this last-look system to automatically reject client orders that would be unprofitable for the bank because of subsequent price swings during milliseconds-long latency periods.