NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barclays Plc (L:BARC) is launching a retail account that will offer U.S. consumers a low-cost, digital-only bank with the backing of a major financial institution, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The move will put the London-based bank in competition with Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (N:GS) new Marcus Brand in the digital banking space, the newspaper reported.
Barry Rodrigues, head of cards and payments at Barclays International, told the Financial Times the bank would “leverage Barclays’ UK knowledge and expertise” to create a current, or checking, account for its U.S. online bank, which already offers credit cards, savings and loans to 13 million customers.
“The more aspects of the relationship a customer has with us, the happier we are,” Rodrigues told the newspaper. “We’re going to launch checking, we’re in the process of doing the build and we’re doing some testing . . . . We expect to have that in the market next year.”
Barclays has a $25 billion loan book in the United States, comprising $20 billion to its co-branded card customers and $5 billion to online bank borrowers.
