First Barclaycard Loans football tournament

The first Barclaycard Loans football tournament of 2011 in aid of Tŷ Hafan Children's hospice in South Wales kicked off in February with close to 40 colleagues battling it out on a cold and wet Cardiff Monday evening. There were some excellent skills on show, and some not so good, some excellent tackling and some downright bad tackling but all in all the games were played in excellent spirit and everyone remained on good terms after the games.

The even was organised by ICM member Rhodri Johnson (Credit Risk Analyst at Barclaycard Loans) and was supported by the ICM South Wales Branch who kindly donated the pitch for the evening. A total of £390 was raised on the night for Tŷ Hafan which included Barclays Matched Funding.

2010 was a record year for Barclays community programmes, with 62,118 employees in 37 countries taking part to support more than 8,000 charities and community organisations. Over the past 5 years, the impact of employees' collective efforts is exceptional - through the employee community programmes, they have volunteered for more than 1.16 million hours, raised more than £75.6 million and donated a further £14.8 million - all to the causes of their choice.

The South Wales branch are always on the lookout for new members and if you would like to enter a full ICM team to future tournaments. If you'd like to be involved please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Early one sunny October morning members of South Wales Branch and invited guests met in Cardiff City Centre for their annual breakfast meeting. This year the meeting was hosted by Hays Recruitment, a company with strong links with the ICM.

Everyone was welcomed by Jason Pallister, Branch Chairman, who spent a few moments outlining the recent activities of the Institute in South Wales, before introducing Sarah Mutter from Hays who had organised the event. Sarah is the company’s credit recruitment specialist based in Cardiff and is a regular attendee at branch events.

Sarah introduced our speaker Richard Brown, Sales Director of Moreton Smith. Moreton Smith is an award-winning credit management agency, providing professional credit control and debt recovery outsource services since 1994.

In recent years the company has developed process-driven solutions that are now being used by some of the world’s leading companies as an integral part of their cash solutions and credit management processes.

Richard covered in some detail how technology forms the backbone of the service, providing clients with access to innovative credit management solutions without capital expenditure or development costs. From the response to the many questions raised, it is clear that the applications are suitable for companies of all sizes, equally relevant to PLCs and SMEs.

Richard was warmly thanked for coming to Wales, within 24 hours of returning from honeymoon, and giving such an interesting and informative presentation. He can be contacted by e-mail on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Finally Sarah Mutter was thanked for arranging the meeting, and asked to pass on our gratitude to Hays. Sarah can be contacted on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

In conjunction with the ICM, the October Barclaycard Loans 5-a-side football tournament was held on a sunny, October evening in Cardiff. The event was organised by Rhodri Johnson and Jason Pallister of the South Wales ICM Branch.

Over £500 was raised on the night for the local charity Bobath Wales, which has been championed by Barclaycard Loans in 2010. The charity provides therapy and support to families who have children with Cerebral Palsy (www.bobathwales.org). Barclays have an active community programme, in 2009, Barclays invested £54.9m in community projects around the world and supported more than 58,415 colleagues in 31 countries to get involved with community activities.

Over 50 colleagues took part in the hotly contested competition with eventual winners the ICM team which consisted of ICM members Jason, Rhodri and Credit Risk colleagues from the business.

The South Wales Branch is looking to recruit more members, if you’d like to be involved in any future events or others please contact Jason at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Annual Breakfast Meeting

On Tuesday 29 September the South Wales Branch returned to the offices of Eversheds in Cardiff for their annual breakfast meeting.   This meeting proved to be the most well attended Breakfast Meeting of the South Wales Branch to date and the audience included representatives from both trade and consumer credit roles, credit insurance and the legal and insolvency professions.  Following a delicious breakfast, our guest speaker for the event BDO Business Restucturing Partner Graham Randall used his knowledge and experience to provide the audience with an informative presentation on pre-pack administrations.   Graham enlightened his audience to the SIP 16 regulations as it was clear that many of those present had concerns regarding the potential lack of transparency for creditors involved in pre-pack administations.  There were also some interesting case studies in order to illustrate where pre-pack administrations had been used.  Following the presentation Graham answered questions on the subject of pre-pack administrations. 

Our thanks go to everyone at Eversheds for their continued support, to Steve Perry for making all the arrangements and to Graham Randall for his presentation.