Barclays

US regulators serviced Bank of America, Citigroup and Barclays with subpoenas over the investigation into the setting of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for U.S. dollars between 2006 and 2008, the Financial Times said.

UBS was among other banks who received subpoenas from US and Japanese regulators over whether it made "improper attempts" to manipulate LIBOR rates, the benchmark price for interbank borrowing costs.

As it became known, Saturday, a systems glitch injured Barclays’ customers. So the majority of bank’s clients were left unable to access their accounts online or use cash machines. 

The Barclays’ computer systems failed early on Saturday hitting Internet and telephone banking customers as well as ATMs. However, the bank representatives claim point of sale transactions were not affected.

Barclays has launched an online game, 56 Sage Street, that sees players arrive in a virtual city broke and improve their status through work and sound money management, targeting to allure teenage customers.

It’s not a surprise Visa is expanding its business rapidly across the world.  Thus far, the volume of Visa contactless cards in use in the UK is to reach 12 million by the end of this year.

£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.

As usual, Theflyonthewall.com posted headlines from research reports and press releases on its website, before banks could share their recommendations with their clients.

As it’s known, in March Theflyonthewall.com was engaged in "systematic misappropriation" by US District Judge Denise Cote essentially getting a "free ride" from its quick publication of upgrades and downgrades that can move stocks higher and lower

As it became known HSBC’s and Standard Chartered’s CEOs intend to provide charity with their bonuses.

Michael Geoghegan chief executive of HSBC would accept his bonus but give it to several charities. Geoghegan stands to be awarded a bonus of four times his basic salary of 1.1 million pounds (or $1.68 million).

At the same time, Peter Sands, head of Standard Chartered, planned to donate his bonus to charity as well.

Bob Diamond, Barclays president, said that the economic recovery will likely accelerate this year in the US while the European nations will not experience as positive changes.

"There are mixed signals, for sure, but we are at the positive end, particularly in the US," Diamond told "Squawk Box Europe."

"We see very strong signs of an accelerated recovery as 2010 goes on" and a "material improvement" in US employment is likely to occur, he added.

Barclays bank acquires the Italian credit card portfolio of Citi. The terms of the transactions were not unveiled.

Under the deal about 197,000 credit card accounts and gross assets worth approximately EUR234 million will be sold to Barclays.

Barclays says the business and staff will be integrated into its existing Italian operations and cards will be rebranded "over time".

Four Seasons Group (FSG), the specialist air conditioning building services group, has acquired JCW Ltd for an undisclosed sum. JCW is a successful heating, ventilation and air conditioning business operating in the UK, from the South West across to Cambridgeshire.
The acquisition of JCW adds a further £12 million of revenue resulting in combined proforma revenue for the Group in excess of £25 million. This places Four Seasons Group as one of the largest air conditioning led building services Groups in the UK.

According to PA News, consumers are expected to spend a record £23 billion on their debit cards during December despite the economic downturn, a research has shown.
A further £17.8 billion of cash is also expected to be withdrawn from ATMs during the month, according to Barclays.
The group, which based its research on spending trends in the past two years, expects debit card spending to be 4% higher than during December 2008.

Barclays and Barclaycard, the leaders in contactless payment in the UK, had announced 10th December 2009, that they have well over five million contactless enabled cards in issue in the UK. Contactless payment technology, pioneered by Barclaycard in the UK since 2007 with the launch of Barclaycard One Pulse, makes life easier for customers related content   Contact information for Barclays Bank 393 views 1 comment

Barclays has made its unique mobile phone banking site simpler, faster and easier for customers to do their banking whilst on the move owing to the updating.
Visiting the site of the company Barclays customers can now view balances, mini-statements and make transfers between their accounts through a newly customized interface, developed specifically for viewing over a mobile phone.

The U.K.'s Supreme Court on Wednesday unexpectedly ruled in favor of the banking sector in a long-running battle over the legality of overdraft fees.

The ruling means banks won't be forced to automatically refund billions of pounds of fees to customers. However, the court didn't rule on whether the charges themselves were fair, meaning customers can continue with individual claims against the banks.

Barclays and First Data, an electronic commerce and payment services provider today announced a long-term strategic global agreement under which Barclays will migrate a variety of card portfolios to First Data's issuing and consumer finance platform.