Barclays Awards E-Learning Contract to Futuremedia

Futuremedia plc, a European e-learning content and services provider, today announced the launch of a learning portal for the Barclays Wealth Academy, building a community of wealth professionals within Barclays Private Clients division. This division offers a range of financial services to Barclays> íhigh net worth clients, including private banking, estate planning and stock broking.

The design and development of the portal, created in partnership with Barclays, carries a large amount of learning content provided by wealth experts - allowing users to tap into existing expertise from within and outside the Barclays organisation. Together with the opportunity for two-way communication to all of Barclays Private Clients staff, some 7,000 employees, it provides just-in-time access to knowledge and best practice.

Paul Rudd, Director of the Wealth Academy said, > > We are delighted to announce the launch of this initiative, which will help our wealth managers provide up-to-date, technically correct advice and excellent client service. The portal has been implemented at great pace - in only six weeks, which is a record for the creation of a sophisticated learning solution within Barclays, but everything we have done has been validated at senior level by the business. The quality of the end product is a tribute to the rigorous design processes that have been employed, and to our close relationship with the team from Futuremedia. They responded with great professional ability to a complex and difficult task.

Leonard M Fertig, CEO of Futuremedia, said, Our relationship with Barclays Wealth Academy is proof of Futuremedia> ís ability to provide advanced learning solutions for clients who demand answers to complex challenges, at pace. Working alongside Barclays, we created the Wealth Academy portal in only six weeks; its launch is the beginning of a number of community based learning portals we are jointly developing.