Barclays £325m web plans

Barclays will set up a business website

Barclays is to nearly double its spend on e-commerce in the year ahead.

It plans to spend £325m this year on expanding its e-commerce ventures, compared with £180m last year.

Its plans includes the creation of a small business website through a joint venture with Freeserve.

By the end of the year, Barclays plans to create an integrated retail financial portal and introduce personal online banking products.

It will also set up a real-time dealing service through Barclay's Stockbrokers.

Online banking world

Barclays is just one of several UK banks expanding their presence in e-banking and e-commerce, a market that has become increasingly competitive.

Most recently, Halifax announced plans to launch its 'Intelligent Finance' unit in July, which will offer banking services over the net. To woo customers, it has signed a deal with BT, offering mobile phones with free internet access to the first 150,000 customers.

Abbey National has launched an electronic banking service called 'Cahoot' and says it has netted 50,000 customers.