LONDON (Reuters) - British bank Barclays is moving into the U.S. retail banking market for the first time in decades with the launch of an online savings account, the Financial Times said on Monday.
The bank will from Monday target U.S. savers with an instant access account and longer-term cash products that pay interest rates of up to 1.75 percent for five-year deposits, the FT said.
The online savings account is designed to secure cheaper and more stable funding for planned growth in its international credit card business.
The newspaper cited people close to the bank as saying Barclays has no plans to establish a retail branch presence in the United States.
Barclays has provided credit cards there through its Barclaycard arm since it bought a Delaware-based lender in 2004.
(Reporting by Stephen Mangan)
