Barclays Export Entercard Joint Venture, sold to Swedish Bank for £200 million
Barclays has agreed to sell its shares in Nordic consumer credit provider Entercard Group to joint venture partner Swedbank for 2.6 billion Swedish Krona (£200 million).
The transaction is part of a UK Bank’s strategy to simplify its operations and dispose of non-core businesses. Barclays said the sale would release about £900 million in risk-weighted assets, increasing its common stock 1 ratio by about four basis points.
The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Founded in 1999, Entercard is one of Scandinavian’s leading consumer credit businesses, issuing credit cards and consumer loans in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Barclays has been gradually reducing its exposure to overseas retail businesses as it refocuses on its core UK and U.S. banking operations.
The move comes after the bank sold most of its UK payments operations to Brookfield Asset Management in April, highlighting the efforts of CEO CS Venkatakrishnan to strengthen the balance sheet and simplify the group’s portfolio.
For Swedish Bank, the acquisition consolidated all ownership of EnterCard and deepened its position in the Nordic consumer finance market.
