Internet Portal Joint Venture with Freeserve
Barclays PLC
27 March 2000
27 March 2000
FREESERVE AND BARCLAYS ANNOUNCE JOINT VENTURE.
AN INTERNET PORTAL FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Freeserve Plc, the UK's leading Internet portal, and Barclays PLC, the UK's
largest Internet bank, today announce a strategic partnership to create a
small business portal and the integration of a co-branded Freeserve portal in
Barclays consumer website.
Barclays and Freeserve have agreed Heads of Terms to form an equity joint
venture, held 60% by Freeserve and 40% by Barclays, to create an Internet
portal aimed at owners, managers and employees of UK small businesses.
The portal will be targeted at all small businesses in the UK including
Barclays 450,000 small business customers, 100,000 of whom are already banking
online, and the estimated 300,000 SoHo (small office, home office) and other
businesses that use Freeserve. Barclays will market the portal through its
network of almost 2,000 small business staff through face-to-face contact,
direct marketing and in business start-up information packs. Freeserve will
promote the portal to its existing online customers and via its existing
distribution channels.
The joint venture portal - planned for launch in May 2000 - will offer a
comprehensive range of online information and services to UK small businesses
and will help them save time and money as well as simplify the way they do
business. It will include:
- an extensive range of communications products and community tools
- advice on sales and marketing, e-commerce, employment issues, accounting,
tax and law, human resources, payroll management, information technology
skills and finance
- direct online access for Barclays customers to their account information
- e-commerce offerings such as office supplies, legal documents and domain
name registration
Also featured in the portal will be Freeserve's Marketplace, Freeserve's
recently-announced end-to-end offer to small retailers providing comprehensive
store-build and maintenance tools, order management and fulfilment solutions,
secure payment processing and full e-commerce support.
In addition to the joint venture Barclays and Freeserve would enter into a
portal co-operation agreement in which a co-branded version of the Freeserve
consumer portal would:
- be served to users of Barclays.net, Barclays existing consumer dial-up ISP
business
- also be accessible by all Barclays online banking customers.
John Pluthero, Chief Executive of Freeserve Plc said:
'There is no partnership better able to deliver the UK's leading small
business portal than Freeserve and Barclays. With Barclays we are building a
comprehensive offering of content, information, commerce and community for
small businesses in the UK. This partnership will ensure that we are jointly
able to create the UK's leading offering in this rapidly growing online
sector.'
John Varley, Chief Executive, Retail Financial Services at Barclays said:
'Barclays is already the UK's largest Internet bank. Last week we announced
Barclays B2B.com in the corporate market. With Freeserve we now intend to set
the pace in the small business marketplace. One in five - and growing rapidly
- of our small business banking customers already bank with us online. This
partnership enables us to extend significantly the range of services we can
offer to small business customers. It will also enable us to offer more to our
personal customers by access to Freeserve's market leading portal. This is an
excellent example of the innovative approach to satisfying customer
requirements taken by Barclays.'
For further information:
Jo Wright, Public Relations, Barclays, Tel: 020 7977 4298
Paul Barker, Investor Relations, Freeserve, 01442 355765
Julian Walker/Patrick Toyne-Sewell, Public Relations, Freeserve,
Tel: 020 7638 9571
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