Well, I didn’t expect to wake this morning to quite a significant snow covering. It reminded me that winter will shortly be upon us, a time to keep warm and stay safe. This year seems to have flown by and I hope many of you will have enjoyed participating in at least one of the Club’s
functions.
Of course, the best may be yet to come with our Christmas Lunch celebration in December. We have a bumper turnout expected and I hope you’ll be able to relax and enjoy the company of new and old friends in a convivial atmosphere. We have a couple of surprises for you as well 😊.
I recently read a brief article which I thought would be of interest to you, especially those who spent time working for the acquiring side of Barclaycard. I don’t know how you feel but personally, I believe we were privileged to work for Barclaycard when we did. It was a well-run business that became very successful and created a global brand of which we were very proud. Perhaps more fundamentally the environment was one of honesty and transparency which allowed us to work hard and play hard.
I had mixed feelings when I read the following:
“Barclays Bank is understood to be in discussions with Brookfield Asset Management about giving
up 80% of its merchant acquiring arm. Barclays said in February that it was exploring a sale or
partnership for the merchant acquiring division, which has struggled to remain competitive in the
face of increasing competition from the likes of Stripe, Adyen and Dojo. Discussions with Brookfield are at an early stage, reports Sky News, but it is thought the UK lender is prepared to
give away 80% of the business, while retaining a 20% stake.
Valuation has been a sticking point for Barclays, with potential investors baulking about paying
good money after bad. In December, the bank wrote down its valuation of the business by £300
million. A potential deal has also been complicated by the takeover of Barclays partner
Takepayments by Global Payments, which could reduce revenues. While not paying a consideration
for the takeover, Brookfield will have to invest substantially in upgrading products and replacing
ageing payment systems. The Canadian asset manager has garnered experience in merchant
acquiring following last year’s acquisition of Network International.”
I look forward to meeting many of you in December at the Lunch. If you have any thoughts on the Club (good or bad!) please find a member of the Committee and have a chat. We are open to new
ideas and able to take constructive criticism.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a relaxing Christmas.
Stay safe and warm
Roger Alexander, Chairman
We have changed the joining criteria to enable those who have transferred their pension out of Barclays to join, see below for details:
Please be aware that charges for any event will be greater for Associate members as we do not receive a Bank Subsidy.
The standard joining fee of £10 as a one-off is the same for all wishing to join.
We publish a regular, quarterly newsletter, THE LINK. It is sent to all registered members. However, sending it by post is a very labour-intensive process. So we are making every effort to persuade members to take it by email instead. We have managed to increase the number of people who receive their copies this way to c. 300. This, however, is still likely to be far fewer than the total number of members who have email accounts.
When you receive it this way it arrives as an attachment to an email message. The attachment is a PDF (Portable Document Format) which opens with Adobe Reader. Almost all computers already have this FREE software installed. If not you can download Adobe Reader from here. Beware and make sure you "uncheck" the optional offers as these may cause conflicts on your PC.
If you can receive your copy this way we urge you to get in touch by using the Newsletter option on the Contact Us form. Let’s face it, if you are reading this message, you probably have an email account and can swap to this version. We’ll help you with the painless conversion.
Christine Graham
To find something from an old newsletter check out the Newsletter Archive by clicking here.
FEEL FREE TO DROP US A LINE TO CONTACT US