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UK-based financial services company Barclays has launched its own branded generic top-level domains (gTLDs).
The move will see Barclays’s online presence operate under the domains .barclays and .barclaycard and move away from the .com and .co.uk domains that it currently operates from.
In a statement announcing the move Barclays said it will also add an extra layer of security for customers and clients by allowing only Barclays and Barclaycard to set up websites ending in .barclays and .barclaycard.
The company has not announced a firm timescale for the change but said it will be gradually phased in over time across all sites.
“During this transition, automatic domain redirects will ensure our customers still reach the appropriate page,” the company said.
Troels Oerting, chief information security officer at Barclays, said: “The launch of the .barclays and .barclaycard domain names creates a simplified online user experience, making it crystal clear to our customers that they are engaging with a genuine Barclays site.
“This clarity, along with the advantages of controlling our own online environment, enables us to provide an even more secure service, which we know is of utmost importance to our customers, and ultimately serves to increase trust and confidence in Barclays’s online entities.”
Other companies that have launched their own gTLDs include French bank BNP Paribas, Australia’s Monash University and UK-based bookmaker William Hill.
Barclays, gTLDs, .barclays, .barclaycard