03.06.2010

On June 3 in the Moscow offices of Barclays Premier, with the support of R.I.M. Porter Novelli, a press-lunch was held on the one year anniversary of the launch of the World MasterCard® card. Barclays was the first bank to issue the card in Russia.

Experts from Barclays Premier, which specializes in working with favored clients of Barclays Bank, had analyzed the data that accumulated over the first year of its operations, allowing them to present the characteristics of the typical owners of the World MasterCard® and the MasterCard® World Signia.

As part of the press-lunch, Olga Vaksina, Head of the Premier Segment Department of Barclays Bank, presented the results of the analysis, examples of which were as follows:

Portrait of users of World MasterCard® cards:

- They prefer to spend money as opposed to saving it, and invest “in themselves” (for example, on traveling, education, and so on). They value highly their status as privileged clients.

- More than 3200 card owners

- More than 60% of card users are younger than 40 years old; 25% are younger than 25 years old

- 76% of transactions with the cards take place in Russia, with the remaining 24% taking place abroad

- 29% of expenditure with the cards is spent on traveling, 20% on fashionable clothing and accessories, and 15% on restaurants

- They prefer to spend their money in Italy, the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the USA

Portrait of users of MasterCard® World Signia:

- Approach spending rationally. They view a bank first of all as an instrument for accumulating savings

- Around 400 card owners

- 62% of the clients are over 40 years old

- Almost 95% of funds are held in deposits and other savings products

- Money is spent almost equally between in Russia and abroad - 54% and 46%, respectively

- 35% of transactions with the cards represent expenditure on holidays and trips; 19% - on fashionable clothing and accessories; and 12% on valuables

- Preferred locations for their spending are Italy, the United Arab Emirates, France and Switzerland

Olga Vaksina said: “As a part of the Barclays group, in the launch of Premier department we made effective use of the experience gained in mature competitive markets. The Premier department in Russia has been in existence now just over one year, and in this time we have already built up a client base of more than 3500, and opened three special branches in prime areas of Moscow. Indeed, our strategy from the outset of dividing the market into two segments has paid off - the statistics show that the first year has been characterized by a winning combination of two premier products. MasterCard® World Signia clients have formed a passive portfolio, while World MasterCard® clients are using their cards and the bank’s services daily.”