Barclays and PayPal strike partnership

The two banking giants have joined forces to enhance their digital payments systems.

Barclays has announced a new strategic partnership with PayPal designed to enable customers to manage and use their Barclays and PayPal accounts together with "greater ease", for the first time, according to a statement by the two firms.

A raft of new features will make it easier for customers to manage their PayPal accounts in Barclays digital channels, and vice versa.  

This may include ways to add Barclays credit and debit cards to PayPal wallets and to update these cards automatically in PayPal when they reach their expiry date.

Partnerships have been a huge theme within fintech and digital banking in the past year. Challengers have, in the push for revenues, often opted for a marketplace approach – a key discussion point at the AltFi London Summit in March – while incumbents have looked to up-skill their own digital offerings from the plentiful innovation within the nascent market.

This partnership, Barclays says, could benefit millions of consumer and small business customers. It will initially focus on enhancing products and services for consumers in the UK and the US. In the UK, small business customers will also see other integrated services from the partnership.

Ashok Vaswani, Barclays UK CEO, said: “Our customers and clients live in an increasingly connected world and this is why we are working with PayPal to make services more joined up and convenient for them. By joining forces, we can make it much easier for people to manage their money and payments.”

“Each of these new features – whether removing the hassle of updating an expired card, connecting with Pingit, or being able to see all your finances in one place, are about designing the very best customer experience. Barclays is becoming a digital company and I believe this strategic partnership with PayPal will provide the first of many new developments in which we join up with partners to enhance digital journeys.”

Gary Marino, Chief Commercial Officer at PayPal, says that as the US and the UK are the firm’s two biggest markets the partnership could have extensive long term potential. 

"This partnership has enormous potential to have a positive impact on people’s financial lives across both countries. We can ensure our consumers and small business customers are fully equipped to take advantage of the new digital economy. Our work with Barclays has already begun, and we look forward to introducing new experiences for our joint customers very soon,” he said.