[April 17, 2012]

The Wait Is Over… Barclaycard US Welcomes Cardmembers to Join Barclaycard Ring® MasterCard® Card Community

Barclaycard US, the payments business of Barclays in the United States, today announced the availability of the first social credit card designed and built through the power of community crowdsourcing. Previously in alpha testing, Barclaycard is now welcoming new cardmembers to join the Barclaycard Ring® MasterCard® card community.

"We have learned a great deal from our first cardmembers and are thrilled to be able to open up the Barclaycard Ring community to see how the product will begin to evolve based on the needs and collective input of our customers," said Paul Wilmore, Managing Director-Consumer Markets, Barclaycard US. "Offering our cardmembers simple, transparent terms as well as the opportunity to help decide how this card can best work for them is all part of our vision to revolutionize the credit card business."

The Barclaycard Ring MasterCard card has simple, easy-to-understand terms and benefits, including:

• One, low 8 percent interest rate for all balances (not 7.99%).
• No annual fees.
• No balance transfer fees, enabling revolving credit card holders to transfer balances from higher interest-rate reward cards and still earn points.
• Giveback™, allowing community members an opportunity to share in the profit generated from their collective decisions.
• A simplified summary of the standard cardmember agreement.

The Barclaycard Ring community provides a forum where cardmembers can exchange ideas, share knowledge and provide direct feedback to Barclaycard US to help determine future product features. Throug weekly online polls, the current community has already provided input on topics ranging from product feature preferences to marketing programs.

"We know that interest rates are still very much top of mind among our cardmembers as one of the most important considerations when choosing a credit card and one of the most important topics they want to have a voice about -- along with fees and rewards," Mr. Wilmore added. "Yet our community has also told us that it wants a say in the direction of the card program in other areas such as servicing and how the GiveBack™ is administered, which allows the community to share in the program's profitability. We have a highly engaged group within the community and we expect this engagement to grow."

In the future, the Barclaycard Ring community will have an opportunity to voice its opinions about specific product features and community functionality.

To support the new credit card, Barclaycard US has also developed a dynamic new online community and servicing website that simplifies the account management process for the cardholders. The web servicing site for Barclaycard Ring represents a new digital service experience for Barclaycard with enhanced functionality and easy to use tools.

For more information and to apply for the new Barclaycard Ring credit card, visit http://www.barclaycardring.com/. Find us on facebook.com/BarclaycardRing or follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @BarclaycardRing. Multimedia assets, including downloadable images and videos are available on the Barclaycard Ring media room.

About Barclaycard US

Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., Barclaycard US creates customized, co-branded credit card programs for some of the country's most successful travel, entertainment, retail, affinity and financial institutions. The company employs 1,300 associates. For more information please visit www.barclaycardus.com.

Barclaycard, part of Barclays Global Retail Banking division, is a leading global payment business that helps consumers, retailers and businesses to make and accept payments flexibly, and to access short-term credit when needed.

The company is one of the pioneers of new forms of payments, and is at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment options for today and cutting edge forms of payment for the future. It also issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the British Government. Barclaycard partners with a wide range of organizations across the globe to offer their customers or members payment options and credit.

Barclaycard operates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle and Far East.

For further information about Barclays, please visit www.barclays.com.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]