; 50 years ago 1966 headquarters london united kingdom area served worldwide products credit cards & contactless technology parent barclays website www.home.barclaycard www.archive.barclays.com barclaycard part of barclays retail and business banking is a global payment business . the barclaycard was the first credit card introduced in the united kingdom coming into service in 1966 . it enjoyed a monopoly until the introduction of the access card in 1972 . the barclaycard was not the first payment card to be issued in the united kingdom though diners club and american express launched their charge cards in 1962 and 1963 respectively . 1 at the time american express was seen as barclaycard s main competitor . barclaycard later became part of the visa network but now offer mastercard visa and american express 2 versions . as of may 2016 barclaycard remains one of europe s leading credit card issuers with over 10 million customers in the uk . barclaycard s main offices are in northampton along with several floors at barclays corporate headquarters one churchill place in canary wharf london . contents 1 barclaycard uk 1.1 timeline of barclaycard uk 1.2 the barclaycard commercials 2 barclaycard international 2.1 timeline of barclaycard international 3 acquisitions 3.1 providian 3.2 egg 3.3 analog analytics 3.4 the logic group 4 partnerships 4.1 transport for london 4.2 aeg 4.3 hawaiian airlines 4.4 jetblue 4.5 mondaine 4.6 garmin 5 barclaycard products 5.1 contactless 5.2 mobile payments 5.3 bpay 5.4 lyle & scott s contactless jacket 5.5 topshop x bpay 6 barclaycard contactless mobile 7 apple pay 8 other elements of barclaycard 8.1 barclaycard payment acceptance 8.1.1 barclaycard global payment acceptance 9 references 10 external links barclaycard uk edit barclaycard has over 10 million customers in the united kingdom 3 issuing one in five united kingdom credit cards . it is currently the leading united kingdom credit card issuer . it is based at 1234 pavilion drive in northampton in a specially designed building . it is one of the main employers in northampton . barclaycard uk customer service representatives are based in india and the philippines . 4 barclays were the only major british clearing bank not to issue cheque guarantee cards instead allowing its customers to guarantee cheques with their barclaycard on the basis that if a customer was creditworthy for a barclaycard they were also good for issuing cheques . citation needed this practice ended in 1985 with the introduction of relaxed lending rules and the introduction of the debit card barclays connect however it was still possible to guarantee barclays bank cheques using a barclaycard well into the 1990s . in 2016 barclaycard won best credit card provider at the british bank awards . 5 timeline of barclaycard uk edit original barclaycard design 1966 1983 1962 diners club becomes the first major charge card company in britain following the merger of finders services and credit card facilities . 1963 american express is launched in the united kingdom . 1966 barclaycard is launched . 1977 barclaycard becomes a founding member of the international visa system . 1986 barclaycard launches first loyalty scheme . 1990 barclaycard mastercard launched . 1997 barclaycard is the first united kingdom credit company to allow bills to be paid over the internet . 2006 tfl and barclaycard join forces to launch contactless payments on the london underground . 6 2008 barclaycard purchases goldfish discover financial services uk credit card division . 2011 barclaycard in partnership with orange launches contactless mobile payments the first in eu second after turkey in europe . 2012 h1 barclaycard remove their original freedom rewards scheme . 7 2012 september barclaycard launch two brand new rewards scheme cards cashback rewards & freedom rewards . 2014 barclaycard issue cards on the american express network in the united kingdom for the first time . 2 2014 aeg partners with barclaycard for the british summer time festival in hyde park . 8 2014 hawaiian airlines and barclaycard launch their consumers and business credit cards . 9 2014 barclaycard acquires leading uk based payment and loyalty business the logic group . 10 2015 the bpay band a contactless wearable is fully launched . 11 2015 bpay joins forces with topshop to launch a collection of contactless wearable accessories . 12 2016 barclaycard becomes the first financial service provider in the uk to enable contactless payments from android phones . 13 2016 apple pay and barclaycard join forces allowing customers to pay with their barclays debit card and barclaycard credit card using an apple device . 14 2016 barclaycard celebrates its 50th birthday . 15 2016 jetblue and barclaycard launch their trueblue loyalty programme and co branded credit card . 16 2016 the fourth product in the bpay range is launched ; bpay loop giving users the ability to add contactless functionality to their existing wearable devices . 17 2016 mondaine swiss watch brand and barclaycard partner together to sell bpay loop alongside their watches . 18 2016 barclaycard and garmin activity tracker brand team up to sell bpay loop s compatibility with their existing devices . 19 the barclaycard commercials edit the original barclaycard adverts featured alan whicker using a barclaycard in a number of travel locations . american express was a main competitor at this time and the focus of the adverts was the number of places that accepted barclaycard but did not accept american express . in the late 1980s and early 1990s rowan atkinson starred in a series of barclaycard adverts . the first advert involved atkinson s character spy richard latham entering hq to be told about his next mission . he is given a barclaycard . the advert ends with richard coming out of a sentry box with an oblivious sentry guard . in the adverts following richard is accompanied by a prot g called bough played by henry naylor . bough is the person who approves of barclaycard and tells richard of its benefits much to richard s disagreement . in the adverts richard burns the end of a rug breaks a china tea pot for a wedding present and disturbs the photo of the wedding and in one particularly well known advert confuses a head honcho from mi5 for a plumber at a crime scene . one ad gives latham the immortal line barclaycard this man s in no state to go shopping the other well known thing about the advert is the theme tune . this advert was the basis for the film johnny english which also starred rowan atkinson the name of his character was changed from richard latham to johnny english . citation needed in 1997 soon after the end of the adverts starring rowan atkinson . barclaycard released a campaign involving an man bearing resemblance to andrew agnew whilst getting up in the morning his house begins to slowly fall apart . when he leaves for work the entire building collapses . it is set to trini lopez s if i had a hammer . in autumn 2008 to promote contactless payment technology and a change in branding barclaycard released a campaign featuring a fantasy water slide . conceived by creative agency bartle bogle hegarty and shot in s o paulo the tv advert feature an man played by robert wilfort leaving work via a slide and passing various contactless payment sites on his way home . the tv advert was directed by peter thwaites and set to the bellamy brothers let your love flow which due to the resultant popularity re entered the uk singles chart and peaked at no. 21 . a second advert was released in january 2010 featuring a man travelling to work on a roller coaster . it is set to boston s more than a feeling . barclaycard international edit as of 2016 barclaycard operate in 40 countries and have over 30 million customers . 3 timeline of barclaycard international edit 1991 barclaycard launches in germany 1997 barclaycard launches its dollar card 1998 barclaycard launches in france 1999 barclaycard launches in spain and greece 2001 barclaycard launches in botswana 2002 barclaycard launches in italy 2003 a collaborative credit card agreement with standard bank in south africa is launched 2004 barclaycard launches in ireland portugal and egypt ; acquires u.s. credit card issuer juniper financial corporation 2005 barclaycard launches entercard in the nordics a joint venture with swedbank 2007 irish portfolio is sold to bank of scotland ireland 2007 barclaycard launches in india and dubai acquisitions edit providian edit in july 2003 barclaycard took over the united kingdom wing of the american company providian national bank known as monument when it was sold off due to financial irregularities of its american parent company . 20 providian s former base in crawley west sussex was fully part of the barclaycard group mainly catering for the very lower end of the credit card market . citation needed this targeting of the less affluent has created a lot of controversy as invariably the people targeted have existing financial problems . citation needed barclaycard sold the monument business and premises to compucredit in 2007 . 21 egg edit in march 2011 barclays announced that it would be buying the british credit card business arm of egg from citigroup for an undisclosed price . at the time of the announcement barclays claimed that the credit card assets consisted of 1.15 million accounts with approximately 2.3 bn of gross receivables . 22 they intend to integrate those customers within their own credit card arm . at the time of the announcement citi said it was committed to working with barclays on a seamless transfer of the customer accounts ensuring continuation of the high level of service to which customers are accustomed . 23 the deal was expected to be completed within the first half of 2011 . analog analytics edit in june 2012 barclaycard acquired analog analytics a digital coupon and daily deal business similar to groupon . 24 25 the logic group edit during september 2014 it was announced that barclaycard was to acquire the logic group 26 a uk based payment and loyalty business . the procurement would enable barclaycard s clients to benefit from the logic group s single platform transaction processing capabilities alongside data insights which would allow merchants to better target their services to customers . toward the end of 2014 barclaycard confirmed that the acquisition had since been completed . 10 partnerships edit transport for london edit during 2006 barclaycard and transport for london tfl launched their contactless payment technology on the london underground ; initially rolling out at only a handful of stations including euston and waterloo . tfl contactless payments cut down on travel queues with users able to quickly touch their cards on the reader as well as providing a simpler way to top up . using smart technology the system also caps daily and weekly travel spend as well as calculating the best fare . since the launch contactless technology has been implemented across the entire tube network london overground buses dlr tram and national rail services which accept oyster payments . 27 aeg edit during the 2014 british summer time festival in hyde park one of the world s leading live entertainment companies aeg partnered with barclaycard for financial investment and technological expertise during the 10 day event . as part of the partnership barclaycard were responsible for point of sale equipment across the festival as well as launching the bpay band which allowed revellers the ability to touch and pay on a contactless terminal without the need cash or cards . in 2015 this partnership was extended until 2019 . 28 29 hawaiian airlines edit in 2014 hawaiian airlines and bank of hawaii partnered with mastercard and barclaycard us to launch their consumer and business credit cards . in the first few months of its launch the companies made donations to the hawaiian airlines sponsored polynesian voyaging society s malama honua worldwide voyage for every new card that was activated