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Yeung Pui Yam

Background:
Barclaycard is a global credit provider (credit cards and loans) owned by Barclays plc in the UK. Barclay PLC is the largest bank in term of total asset value, which amounts to $1.9 trillion

The Barclaycard was the first credit card introduced in the UK, by purchasing the franchise of Visa¡¦s credit card system and technology. The service came into service in 1966. It enjoyed a monopoly until the introduction of the Access card in 1972, which was a consortium formed by National Westminster Bank, Midland Bank (now HSBC Bank), Lloyds Bank (now Lloyds TSB) and The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Nowadays, Barclaycard offers both MasterCard and VISA versions and its market is now not only constrained in U.K. Its subsidiary business unit, Barclaycard International, operate in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, India, United Arabic Emirates, Sweden and South Africa. Furthermore, Barclaycard US ¡X separate from the Barclaycard global operation, this is the corporation's US credit card business unit (formerly known as "Juniper Bank"). It issues branded credit cards such as US Airways, Midwest Airlines, and Frontier Airlines MasterCard, as well as Airtran Airways Visa card in U.S. market.

Until 2003, Barclaycard was still a market leader in the U.K credit card market. However, its market share has been diluted gradually due to hyper-competition in credit card industry. Besides, the dynamic merger and acquisition among the credit card industry also make Barclaycard¡¦s ranking of market share decline. Nevertheless, Barclaycard claims it is still Europe's leading issuer of credit cards with 11 million in circulation.

In the past several years, Barclays PLC made some strategic decision on acquisition of other credit card company and their credit portfolio. For example, acquisition with the Providian (former credit card issuer), recent attempt to acquire ABN Amro despite of unsuccessful take-over and takeover of Absa Group Limited, South Africa's largest...