Barclays news and archive

January storms boosted online and non-essential spending in the UK

Essential spending returned to growth in January after four consecutive months of decline, while wellness and social media trends drove discretionary purchases, according to new data from the Barclays Consumer Spend report. Despite falling consumer confidence in the UK economy, down five percentage points to 21 percent, spending on essential...

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Retail

December sales boost fails to save UK retail’s “Golden Quarter”

Christmas fails to save 2024 trading, as new data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG International reveals that UK total retail sales for the year increased by just 0.7 percent from 2023, while non-food declined by 1.5 percent. For the three months to December, known as the “Golden Quarter,” sales growth was 0.4 percent...

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Business

Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour to provide nearly 1 billion pound boost to the UK economy

New data from Barclays reveals that Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated ‘Eras’ tour will provide a 997-million-pound boost to the UK economy, as Swifties are expected to fork out 848 pounds on average to see the singer at one of the 15 UK tour dates. The Barclays ‘Swiftonomics’ report shows that fans attending the tour in the UK will spend the...

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Retail

Retailers are responding to rising prices with expanded recommerce offerings

New research by Barclaycard Payments has found that retailers have been introducing more “sustainable” ways to buy and sell products and services, as consumers become increasingly conscious over their spending. In its new report, the payment provider said that seven in 10 of the businesses surveyed were now offering recycling, renting, reusing...

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Business

Amazon partners with Barclays on payment installations

Amazon has partnered with Barclays in order to allow its customers to pay in instalments in the UK. Amazon customers in the UK will be able to apply for reusable credit at Barclays that lets them spread the cost of their Amazon purchases into monthly instalments. The purchases must be over 100 pounds. The monthly instalments will also be...

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Report

Barclays downgrades Marks and Spencer

Barclays has downgraded Marks and Spencer’s stock to “underweight” from “equalweight” and slashed the price target, as the bank predicts that things are “likely to get worse before they get better” for the UK retailer. With Marks and Spencer sitting at the bottom of the FTSE 100, Barclays cut its price target to 290 pence per share, from 410...

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Retail

Apple Pay officially goes live in the UK

London - Apple fans are rejoicing today because the awaited Apple Pay has gone live in the UK, nine months after the contactless mobile payment service first launched in the US. According to Apple, its mobile payment service was activated over 1 million times over the first three days of its launch in the US and the firm has has similar...