Barclaycard

MasterCard Worldwide has announced appointment of Maripi S. Jalandoni as a new Group Head of Marketing for its Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) region. According to the company’s policy Jalandoni will ensure that the company’s brand positioning is executed effectively. Living in Singapore, she will control regional management of marketing teams and develop new strategies to accommodate local market opportunities. 

Barclaycard is launching a new mobile banking service as a part of their online servicing platform mybarclaycard.

With the new offering which can be accessed across different mobile phone models Barclaycard customers cab log into their accounts, check their balance and view payment or transaction history at any time by simply accessing the site through their mobile browser. Besides, the site integrates with the Barclaycard Freedom loyalty scheme to provide access to the latest offers from nearby retailers, using the latest geo-location technology.

Barclaycard is launching the UK’s first commercial contactless mobile phone payments system in association with network operator Everything Everywhere. The launch is scheduled for this summer.

The companies said in a statement that they are working with the unnamed handset vendor to allow Britons to make low value payments at the point of sale by waving their phones against specially equipped contactless terminals.

Barclaycard has announced the launch of new secure online payment processing system, Barclaycard SmartPay.

Barclaycard SmartPay was designed to help European retailers compete with domestic retailers in foreign markets and reduce the number of transactions where customers do not complete their purchase. 

Barclaycard has selected SoundBite Communications, a leading provider of on-demand, multi-channel proactive customer communications to deliver proactive customer communications across Europe.

The company also established a wholly-owned subsidiary, SoundBite Communications UK, Limited, to meet the growing demand for its proactive customer communications solutions in Europe. This move enables SoundBite to establish dedicated staff based in the UK to accelerate its European growth strategy.

A UK major card network Barclaycard has entered into a partnership with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accounting firm KashFlow to pilot an e-invoicing service for merchants. According to the reports of TechCrunch, Barclaycard is running the pilot test with 100 merchants so as to trial the KasFlow-based system for creating, sending and managing invoices through a Web browser.

Apart from this functionality participants will also be able to track late transactions and receive payments via the Barclaycard gateway, for which the firm charges a three per cent fee.

Barclaycard has started offering a new service mybarclaycard, helping the users better control their finances. The system provides SMS and email alerts to the customers to keep on top of their spending when out and about. Barclaycard offers 6 various alerts to choose from, including: Account balance, Notification of statements posted online, Payments due, Payments received, Spending limit reached, Balance limit

£1 billion investment is planned to be made by Barclays in the global retail banking operations over the following years in a move to complete its branch network overhaul and implement new technologies.

The UK bank created a Global Retail Banking division late last year as part of a major organisational shake-up, putting former Barclaycard boss Antony Jenkins in charge.

Jenkins said that the company plans to add up to four million retail customers by 2013, expanding in all 21 markets in which Barclays operates.

Barclaycard announced the upcoming launch of its new payment system Barclaycard SmartPay that the company had been trialing during this year. The system aims to help Barclaycard's e-commerce customers manage their cross-border payments.

Barclaycard SmartPay payment system will be giving organisations access to one single payment processing system to use across markets that can be tailored to provide a range of language and currency settings dependent on where the customer is paying from.

Choice Hotels International has introduced the new Choice Privileges® Visa Signature® Card. The new card which is issued by Barclaycard US features no annual fee and special bonus program. It automatically upgrades to Elite Gold status and is available starting July 1.

A cardholder earns 8,000 bonus points immediately after his/her first purchase and another 8,000 bonus points after their first paid stay with the new Choice Privileges Visa card at a Choice brand hotel. Using these points customers can stay for two nights at any of over 1,500 Choice Privileges locations.

An exclusive multi-year deal was closed between Barclaycard US and the National Football League. The agreement is targeted to market credit cards bearing the NFL shield logo and the logos of each of the 32 NFL clubs.

Barclaycard has demonstrated its new application that turns smartphones into a chip and PIN payment terminal. The solution targets small businesses like plumbers, electricians and market traders. The system will be piloted in the second half of 2010 before the Christmas period.

Barclaycard reported that it is deploying MasterCard's inControl technology so as to allow users of its Orange co-branded contactless credit card to set spending controls and receive real-time alerts about their accounts.

Last month the two companies BarclayCard and Orange launched their joint product under a partnership aimed at pushing through the development and adoption of contactless mobile payments services.

Barclaycard set collaboration with UK government IT agency Becta to in a move to develop a special pre-paid card delivering grants to families qualifying for a free computer and Internet connection under the terms of Home Access programme.

The national deployment of the programme follows a successful test in late 2009 in which 12,500 families from two Local Authority areas qualified for Internet access provision grants.

Orange and Barclaycard introduced a co-branded contactless credit card that will let customers manage their budgets and keep tabs on spending via SMS notifications.

The new card enables customers to purchase items of £10 and under at the POS by waving it over specially equipped terminals.