Barclays boosts Visa partnership with new European deal

Barclays has announced a multi-year European partnership with Visa.

The two have been working together for more than 50 years. Barclays was the first business to launch a credit card with Visa in the UK in 1966. They have also partnered on the likes of contactless payments and wearables in the UK and the roll-out of ‘touch and go’ payments across the Transport for London network.

The European agreement is, according to a press release, “designed to drive the development of new payment solutions that benefit all merchants and consumers and to support Barclays’ growth into new markets”. It also ensures Barclays will continue to offer Visa as its card scheme partner for cards issued in UK.

“This is a landmark partnership for Barclays which will ultimately benefit merchants and consumers. We have enjoyed a successful partnership with Visa for 50 years and over that time we have never stopped innovating,” says Ashok Vaswani, Global Head of Consumer Banking and Payments at Barclays.

“Our continuing partnership will enable us to jointly invest in developing faster and smoother payments to benefit merchants and consumers. We process nearly half of the UK’s debit and credit card transactions, which reflects Barclays position in the marketplace. Partnerships such as this enable us to continue to commit investment to developing new payment solutions that benefit all of our customers.”