Barclays invests £11m in UK data processing centre

Barclays is to spend approximately £11m on a data processing centre in Leicester, UK.

A spokeswoman for the high-street bank said it is too early to say which functions will be carried out at the facility, but in a month which has brought more job losses across the country, the company was pleased to confirm the project will create about 850 jobs.

Barclays is also remaining tight-lipped on what the Leicester facility will mean for its other UK data processing sites. The banks ATM (automatic teller machine) network has been plagued by much publicised problems and this summer had to be closed down for over an hour due to system failures which allegedly involved database management software upgrades.

However, a spokesman at Unifi, the banking union, said the new facility is unlikely to replace older sites, where there have also been problems with staff seeking loyalty bonuses for not leaving to work on lucrative millennium bug projects. The Leicester facility will most probably house people manually processing cheques, he said.

The centre is expected to go live next year.