Barclays Bank acquires UK business of Charles Schwab Europe

Barclays PLC today, 31 January 2003, announces that it has acquired Charles Schwab Europe, CSE. The acquisition brings together Barclays Stockbrokers, the UKs largest retail stockbroker, with CSE, an award winning execution-only broker, to create the leading market player in UK retail broking. The unaudited net tangible assets of CSE at the end of December 2002 amounted to 17m.

The CSE business has a client base of more than 150,000 accounts, and an award winning website. The business will be integrated with Barclays Stockbrokers, part of Barclays Private Clients, a process expected to take between six and nine months. The combined business will have over 500,000 execution-only client accounts.

During integration the services provided by CSE and Barclays Stockbrokers will remain largely unchanged in the interests of maximising service continuity for customers. Post integration the objective is to leverage the complementary strengths of the two businesses, bringing together Barclays Stockbrokers independent research and overseas dealing capabilities with CSEs stockbroker service, which is mainly distributed through the on-line channel.

Barclays Stockbrokers proposes to consolidate the two operations at its sites in Glasgow and Peterborough. Once integrated, it is expected that the CSE sites in Birmingham and Milton Keynes will close. It is anticipated that closure will take place during the second half of 2003.

Commenting, Bob Hunter, Chief Executive, Barclays Private Clients, said. Todays acquisition of Charles Schwab Europe furthers our strategic ambition of delivering world-class investment at great value. By combining the UKs largest stockbroker with the player offering the best on-line service in the country we will expand the breadth and quality of investment services that we can offer the customers of both organisations. At the same time we expect to achieve significant efficiency gains.

William Atwell, Executive Vice President, Schwab International, said. Were proud of what we have achieved since first establishing our presence in the United Kingdom in 1992. We are one of the UKs leading execution-only brokers and have won numerous accolades for our website and our customer service.

But we cannot ignore the fact that we are operating in a very difficult market. As we looked to the future it became clear that we could not achieve our market share goals in the UK without an acquisition or a significant investment in the expansion of our pound sterling services to a fuller offering integrated with banking. Ultimately we reached the difficult conclusion that such an investment did not make sense for our firm at this time. However, in line with our corporate strategy, we will continue seeking to aggressively grow our US dollar business in the UK and elsewhere.

In Barclays I am confident we have found the best new home for our pound sterling customers: a company that shares our passion for customer service and that will provide investors with the rich array of banking and investing services they deserve. Well work closely with Barclays Stockbrokers to ensure the transition is as seamless as possible for customers.

END

I have just had a letter informing me that my broker Barclays is going to merge with Charles Schwab. My first reaction was 'great' better service more products etc. But then I dug a little deeper and visited Schwabs web site.

http://www.schwab-worldwide.com/europe/

I have found that they charge nearly 10 more per deal than BSL. They have a yearly charge and a tiered pricing scheme rather than a flat rate. I deal a lot but do not like being pressured into dealing just to get a cheaper deal.

Their dealing interface is not as good as BSL's current setup.

Charles Schwab seem to be more interested in selling managed investment products rather than a dealing service. I hope than it is a beneficial merger and that some aspects of the Charles Schwab service will change also.

I use Barclays not because they are the cheapest, but because of their service which is excellent. Although the second the service declines or I have to pay any more than I am currently I will be seeking alternative providers.

Any thoughts from current Barclays Stockbroker clients or Charles Schwab clients?

It depends on what the towel was covering. :-)

Ref : Barclays Stockbrokers > Coming soon Advanced Stop Orders, Extended settlement T+10, and Read Time Level 2, also with Price Improver 95% of the time they beat LSE displayed price, plus if you trade more than 10 times per month all trade are 7.50, so with price improver you are 'at times trading for free' just the .5% stamp duty to consider.....
What a cracking service....
Nite t nite all..
Mike....

Sorry a 'typo' it's late! I ment 'Real Time Level 2'

I think it is >10 deals a quarter then 7.50. You can also almalgamate the trades from various accounts.

Sorry you are correct 10 trades per 1/4..

Been getting excellent service from Barclays they are getting good prices and dealing charges of only 7.50 is great, i have the stop loss system on my account but so far its not been triggered !

Their CFD service doesnt seem as good as others though so i am not signed up for that.

Level 2 might suggest that they are going to bring out a trading platform like etrade and TDW which would be cool.

Nickb

How did you manage to arrange a stop loss feature on your account.

If like me by trading to often!

fred i think they are rolling the stop loss feature out slowly to clients.

Like watching paint dry trying to trade with Barclays this am Verrrrry SLOW same at times Fri :o(((

Must be just me - been trying since MAY to get payments FROM the account ( yes for more than a month!) - no way this will work - stuffed up instructions, un-returned calls, payments that go out & mysteriously come back etc & if I dare to complain its another 2 hrs of music to coomit suicide to as they put me in call centre hell yet again & then its a feeble excuse - its the system stupid! - or some such we will call you back)NOT!) etc

& they have really got me - as I can't get cash out so I can't even fire them!

On the verge of suing them but they have bottemless pockets - so what to do?

seriously think they can not be trusted with anything

imo nag dyor etc

chartist2004

re post 21 may I ask where you saw that?

tia

mbbcat - I'll reply Tues, just got in after 14.5 hrs work so I bu****ed!
See ya later....

ta

have used both in the past ,,,out of the 2 barclay`s for me!

11 May 2009 - Barclays Stockbrokers website functionality update.


In March I posted a message on our website acknowledging the website performance issues you had been experiencing and to outline the efforts that my team were making to stabilise and enhance online performance. Given the recent levels of trading activity and the accompanying problems, I believe an update is in order.

Firstly, what have we done since I last wrote?


Additional web servers have been deployed, increasing site access capacity and concurrent usage capacity. The numbers of clients accessing the website and dealing are at record levels.
We have been tuning the speed of core client asset and cash databases, both key components of the web dealing service, to further improve web speed and capacity.
We are continuing to increase our capacity to answer telephone dealing calls through the deployment of new staff and training existing staff to take additional call types. So far we have added 23 new staff though, with their training requirements, they are not able to take calls across all lines yet.
We are continuing to work with our third party data suppliers, market counterparties, client support functions and other key service suppliers to ensure that they are all able to deliver key services and functionality at periods of peak demand.
We have continued the diagnostics output that has helped to inform the stabilisation work and the assessment of where additional investment for the stabilisation program should be targeted for maximum benefit.
Our challenge is that as we increase capacity, demand rises. Much like adding another lane to a motorway, traffic quickly builds up, the jams return, and the motorist soon feels that nothing has changed: the only difference is that more cars are using the motorway.

This is what is happening with our website. In April our average daily equity trade count was over 50% higher than in March and two and a half times what we managed a year previously; our recent peak days have been 30% higher than ever achieved before; and every trading day so far in May has seen more trades than the busiest single day of 2008.

Clearly, the work that we have already carried out has made a difference in that more of you are able to trade. However, it still is not a good experience for many. I also do not think we should take any comfort from the fact that other retail stockbrokers are experiencing worse problems.

We need to do more. So what work is ongoing and planned?

We are continuing with the diagnostic work that has been vital at pinpointing areas that we need to focus on and allowing us to respond to glitches as they occur.
We will continue the tuning work that has already significantly improved capacity.
We will re-engineer the online Quote and Deal functionality and handling of the At Best and Limit Order queues. Both are vital processes that are required to handle significant loads at times of peak demand. This work will improve the capacity of both of these processes as well as speed of response.
Consideration is being given to other tactical initiatives that would positively impact both website capacity and experience on the telephones. However, these will have an impact on other aspects of customer service. The areas we are looking at include temporarily restricting some of the non-essential web content and functionality to direct maximum system capacity to the core dealing, pricing and research functionality at periods of peak demand; and changes to the telephone opening hours and the resourcing of non-dealing telephone lines to reduce wait times. Clearly we will communicate to you well in advance of any changes being made.
Improving the customer experience is my top priority. In writing to you, I want to give you confidence that good progress is being made and more will be done. The issues we have and our plans to resolve them are known at the highest levels of Barclays management.

It remains only for me to apologise to those of you experiencing problems and to thank you for your continued support.

Kind regards


Des Byrne

Managing Director, Head of Barclays Stockbrokers