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Pretax profit for Barclaycard, the credit-card issuing arm of United Kingdom-based Barclays PLC, in 2008 totaled 789 million UK pounds (US$1.17 billion or 902.6 million euros), up 30.8% from 603 million pounds the previous year. Pretax profit included about 260 million pounds from Barclaycard International, up about 70% from the previous year, the financial institution says in its financial report released Monday. The pretax profit also included 40 million pounds from Barclay's 2008 acquisition of the Goldfish card brand from United States-based Discover Financial Services. Barclaycard's 2008 net income, including impairment charges, increased 24.7%, to 2.12 billion pounds from 1.7 billion pounds the previous year. The issuer's net fee and commission income increased by 13.2%, to 1.29 billion pounds from 1.14 billion pounds. Net interest income increased by 30%, to 1.78 billion pounds from 1.37 billion pounds. Barclaycard had 11.7 million UK customers as of 31 Dec., up 15.8% from 10.1 million a year earlier. Barclaycard had 11.6 million international customers, up 50.6% from 7.7 million. Average outstandings for international customers was 6.5 billion pounds last year, up 58.5% from 4.1 billion pounds in 2007. Average outstandings for UK customers stood at 9.9 billion, up 17.9% from 8.4 billion. Pretax profits for Barclaycard US reached US$249 million (190.8 million euros) above the US$150 million Barclays had projected.
