Barclays Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Barclays - Coursework Example It has 140, 000 employees located in over fifty countries. It accepts deposits, transfers, protects, lends and invests money for its customers that are located in different countries. The financial organization has a long history. In 1690, two goldsmith bankers; Thomas Gould and John Freame would move from one place to another bearing the sign of the black spread eagle and would accept gold deposits from anyone visiting Lombard Street in the city of London. The black eagle sign was convenient to most people because majority of the population could not read. In 1736, the son in law of John Freame, James Barclay became a partner to the business. Years later and in 1864, the first banking house was erected in Lombard Street and the gold saving and lending business has since evolved into a classic form of financial services organization which is today known as Barclays Bank Plc in UK and that has a global banking branch network. Financial Services Barclays offers a wide range of financia l services. For instance, Barclay’s capital is responsible for managing interest rates, foreign exchange, and equity and commodity risks. Barclay’s capital specializes in three core areas namely; private equity which provides clients with the opportunity to buy privately transacted equities from private companies located in different parts of the world; credit which is comprised of investment grade and high yield bonds and loans; interest for equity products, money markets, fixed income, emerging markets, prime services and commodities. Products offered include; savings accounts, insurance, debit card, online banking, loans etc (Pang, 2009). In general, Barclays deals with retail and commercial banking, investment banking, credit cards, investment and wealth management services. The financial company offers commercial and residential mortgages to individuals and businesses and has flexible terms of repayment. Investors can obtain short term funding by the way of overdr afts which helps them avoid high exchange rate and interest costs. Overdraft provides investors with a more flexible and convenient source of working capital with a repayment period that is renewable upon expiry (Andreeva & Branda, 2009). By linking the interest rate of the overdrawn amounts to the Barclays base rate, the client is cushioned from high but fluctuating interest rates. The bank also offers standby letters of credit of financial guarantees to individual’s who would want to support their trade, corporate or personal related activities with other financial institutions. These guarantees that can also be tailor made include; bonds, maintenance guarantees, performance guarantees, retention money guarantees, advance payment guarantees, indemnities, acceptances among others (Dixon, 2009). The bank also offers a wide range of foreign exchange products including; spot exchange, forward exchange contract and option dated forward exchange contract. Besides these, the compa ny gets to provide a wide range of other financial products and services through mergers and acquisitions. Recently, Barclay’s combines its merger and acquisition and corporate finance divisions into a single unit. The move was intended to bring create a bond between coverage bankers and Mergers and acquisitions bankers who are part of corporate finance team to attract more business to the bank by driving revenue growth and offering strategic financial and investment advisory services. It also provides global ATM services by partnering with five international banks (Deering, 2004). The bank acquired Absa in