Barclays offers US online savings account Barclays is moving into the US retail banking market for the first time in decades, with the launch of an online savings account designed to secure cheaper and more stable funding for planned growth in its international credit card business. The bank will from Monday target US savers with an instant access account and longer-term cash products that pay interest rates of up to 1.75 per cent for five-year deposits. Barclays does not have a retail branch presence in the US and has no plans for one. It has provided credit cards there through its Barclaycard arm since it bought a Delaware-based lender in 2004. Executives, who shelved early plans to buy a big US retail bank in 2010, have ruled out further expansion of the US retail business at this stage, according to people close to the bank. The decision to fund its credit card book from local retail deposits - rather than a combination of wholesale funding in the US and UK - was intended to create a simpler and more efficient structure, Barclays said. It will help smooth currency movements and could provide cheaper funds than the bank is able to access elsewhere. "We are launching a spectrum of rates - paying from 0.35 per cent to 1.75 per cent," said Steve Carp, managing director of deposits for Barclays US. This is attractive funding for us. By comparison, banks are paying more than 4 per cent on five-year cash bonds in the UK, while the best instant access accounts are offering about 3 per cent, according to Moneyfacts.co.uk, the comparison site. Also, wholesale funding is becoming more expensive for UK banks as they are dragged into the debt crisis sweeping through Europe. Barclays" move is expected to please regulators, which increasingly want banks to match their overseas liabilities with money raised in local markets. They believe this would make institutions" problems easier to resolve if they ever ran into financial difficulties. It comes as the bank plans to expand its £23bn credit card book both in the UK and overseas. Barclays also has card divisions in Germany, South Africa and Scandinavia. It launched its first retail savings account in Germany this year, which it said attracted €1bn of funds in three months through 20,000 new accounts. The bank said it did not have specific targets for the new US account.