This week, we distill insights around Barclaycard Ring– a credit card whose policies, fees and rewards are co-created by card members. 100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on social data, crowdsourcing, storytelling and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network. Every week, we pick up one project and do a deep dive into conversations around it -- on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web -- to distill insights and foresights. We share these insights with you on our People’s Insights blog and compile the best insights from the network and the blog in the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine, as a showcase of our capabilities. We have further synthesized the insights to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers — in the ten-part People’s Insights annual report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement, now available as a Kindle eBook. For more, see: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/future-of-engagement

1. crowdsourcing | storytelling | citizenship | social data
Barclaycard Ring
People’s Insights Volume 2, Issue 15

2. Volume 2, Issue 15,
April - June, 2013
Future of
Money
Barclaycard Ring
100+ thinkers and planners within MSL-
GROUP share and discuss inspiring proj-
ects on social data, crowdsourcing, story-
telling and citizenship on the MSLGROUP
Insights Network. Every week, we pick up
one project and curate the conversations
around it — on the MSLGROUP Insights
Network itself but also on the broader
social web — into a weekly insights report.
Every quarter, we compile these insights,
along with original research and insights
from the MSLGROUP global network, into
the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine.
We have synthesized the insights from our
year-long endeavor throughout 2012 to
provide foresights for business leaders and
changemakers — in the ten-part People’s
Insights Annual Report titled Now & Next:
Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engage-
ment.
People’s Insights
In 2013, we continue to track inspiring
projects at the intersection of social data,
crowdsourcing and storytelling, with a fo-
cus on projects that are shaping the Future
of Citizenship.
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3. 3
A “crowdsourced” credit card?
In April 2012, Barclays US launched Barclaycard
Ring – a credit card whose policies, fees and
rewards are co-created by card members. The
credit card attracted early adopters and frustrated
credit card users with its promise of straight
forward fees, transparency and collaboration.
Source: Paul Wilmore introduces the Barclaycard Ring
Vision to change the credit card industry
Barclays envisions the card will be “built on
transparency, authenticity and a community,” and
invites card members to “to start changing the
credit card industry.”
Here’s a video in which Paul Wilmore, Managing
Director - Barclaycard Branded Products, shares
the story behind the card:
Source: fastcompany.com
Source: business.time.com
In his review on the card, financial blogger David Weliver
highlighted the two way channel of communication:

4. Volume 2, Issue 15,
April - June, 2013
Future of
Money
Barclaycard Ring
Source: facebook.com/BarclaycardRing
How it works
Barclaycard Ring attracts people with its unique
proposition and innovative Giveback rewards
program; builds a community based on open
communication; keeps people engaged with a
calendar of co-creation opportunities and financial
literacy content, and incentivizes participation.
Card members can access a private online
dashboard which displays the different actions
they can carry out, features or rewards they
can vote on, and monthly performance of the
community and the card. Card members can also
ask & answer community questions.
Blogger Laura Edgar summarizes the opportunity
for card members:
“As a Barclaycard Ring card customer, you’ll be
able to go online and see how the company is
performing through an online profit and loss
statement. You’ll get to vote anytime Barclaycard
suggests raising fees, changing the APR or
altering the card’s terms and conditions. You’ll also
get to weigh in on marketing ideas and website
enhancements through online forums.
“Basically, if you have ideas or concerns, you’ll
always be able to discuss them with other
cardholders and a Barclaycard “community
manager”, who has the dual role of customer
service representative and forum moderator.”
“Barclay’s is calling this a “crowdsourced” credit
card. According to the bank, they are “actively
listening” to card members and will change the
card’s features in real-time according to feedback.”
A blog post by the Unibul team highlighted the
appeal of such a unique product:
“What I like most about Barclaycard Ring is its
avowed transparency. Banks know better than
anyone just how unpopular with their customers
they’ve become and are looking for ways to reverse
the trend (or at least some of them do).”
This comment on the Barclaycard Ring Facebook
page reflects a similar sentiment:
Community managers regularly introduce
new topics on the public blog, and direct card
members to discuss these on a private member-
only platform. Community managers also
document the decisions and successes of the
community on the blog, and share results of the
card’s monthly performance.
Source: Barclaycard Ring Community Website Overview
Members can contribute to the health of the
community by participating actively and to the
health of the card by using their cards regularly,
making regular payments, referring friends and
opting for paperless e-statements.
Source: barclaycardring.com/

5. 5
Barclaycard’s Paul Wilmore shared the inspiration
behind this model:
“We were inspired by the sense of community
shared among credit union members, as well as
the way social media is helping people learn from
each other.
“Our online community allows for these two ideas
to converge. Just like real-life circles of friends and
communities of like-minded people, we’re building
an online community that enables our card
members to gather information, share knowledge,
and have a role in the card’s future success.”
Giveback program keeps the
community on track
To prevent members from voting for features
that would harm the financial performance of
the Barclaycard Ring, Barclays introduced an
innovative rewards program called Giveback.
As TIME’s Martha White pointed out:
“Since most consumers don’t care about a bank’s
bottom line, Barclaycard US set up an incentive
system to get customers to consider these costs.
In lieu of a traditional rewards program, Ring
cardholders will get periodic “givebacks,” in the
company’s parlance, of profit the bank earns above
a predetermined threshold.
“Customers will vote on whether they want that
money distributed as statement credits, donated to
a charity, or some combination.”
Giveback presents customers with a win-win
situation, as CreditDonkey blogger David R noted:
“The novel, community-driven approach allows
cardholders to vote on what benefits or features
they want and share in the estimated profit of the
community’s financial performance.”
Jared Young, Senior Director at Barclaycard US
and community manager of the community
explained how members can qualify for
Giveback:
“We accumulate the [Giveback] pool through two
different programs: Barclaycard Ring returns and
referrals from members. An individual card member
is eligible to earn Giveback™ from both pools only if
they participated in contributing to them.
“For example, you can only receive money from the
referral pool if someone applied from your referral
through the module on our website. And, you can
only earn Giveback™ from the returns calculation if
you actually used your card.”
Bad behavior, such as late payments, results
in a portion of the member’s Giveback going
to charity. The program also incentivizes ‘good
community behavior,’ as financial blogger David
Weliver noted:
“when account holders opt in for paperless
statements and pay their bills on time, the
community benefits; the card will kick back more of
a reward to account holders.”
While some card members have earned rewards
through the Giveback program, potential
customers are skeptical of the benefits of this
new model versus traditional rewards programs.
Card member Philipwhuf commented:
“I just [received] $90 back via the “Give Back”
feature which will be applied to my statement and
this was with moderate usage.”
A potential customer commented:
“This card has no reward points as I am used to
but gives a profit sharing percentage back. I havent
used the card yet and I am on the fence whether the
profit sharing is better than rebate points.”
Gamification keeps the
community engaged
In addition to incentivizing good behavior,
Barclays is using elements of gamification to
encourage active participation and to reward
active participants.
Fast Company’s Kit Eaton noted:
“It’s all about promoting active user involvement
in adjustments and refinements to Ring’s ongoing
financial design…
“If you actively participate to improve the Ring
experience and performance, then you’ll be
rewarded--using mechanisms that the community
itself can adjust. That’s brilliant, as it could
mean the users themselves are working to refine
Barclaycard’s own design, for their own gain as well
as Barclaycard’s.”
Card members can view their participation or
‘achievements’ online, as well as their latest
community standing - depicted by the colors on
their badge or “ring”.

6. Volume 2, Issue 15,
April - June, 2013
Future of
Money
Barclaycard Ring
Source: community.barclaycardus.com/t5/Barclaycard-Ring-Public-Blog
Benefits to Barclays
The active channel of communication between
Barclaycard Ring and the community helps
the bank collect real time feedback around
features. For example, in a blog post titled
“Crowdsourcing the Design of Your Card,”
Barclay’s Jared crowdsourced views on RFID chip
enabled credit cards:
“The RFID chip – Is it worth the $1 per card? It
seems to me like the community is pretty split
over this one. Will mobile payments surpass RFID
chip technology and make it obsolete, or will more
merchants start accepting RFID making it a nice
feature?”
In addition, the model of changing policies
over time – with card member support – gives
Barclays a great playing field to experiment
with new policies, like getting rid of the 1%
foreign country fee. Card members can choose
to support the experiment and are equally
responsible for its success or failure.
Source: lithosphere.lithium.com/t5/lithium-s-view-blog
Credit card analyst Jenna Herron explained how the badges work:
“The creators of Barclaycard Ring and the online community realized that part of social media is creating
status. Think of Foursquare’s mayorship, Pinterest’s repins, Twitter’s retweets or getting dozens of “likes” on
a Facebook post. So Barclaycard introduced “badges.”
“Cardholders earn badges by behaving in a way that helps the card’s community... Once you earn a badge,
your online avatar receives a ring of color. The more colors, the more badges.”

7. 7
Source: facebook.com/BarclaycardRing
Promoting transparency &
understanding of the credit card
business
Another notable aspect of Barclaycard Ring is
the culture of sharing information freely with
card members. Community managers candidly
explain the cost of various transactions and the
monthly earnings from each transaction.
They also share overall performance results on
a monthly basis along with an analysis of what
worked and external events that impacted results
– giving card members a better understanding of
the impact of their decisions.
Can the Barclaycard Ring also
promote larger financial literacy?
Thinkers, card members and the Barclaycard
Ring team believe the Ring community has an
opportunity to promote financial literacy amongst
members.
Julia Roy, digital influencer and card member,
envisions more discussion around financial
health in the Barclaycard Ring community:
“The number of active community members at
this points is pretty small and conversations in
the forums is mostly centered around questions
and issues specific to the card, versus discussions
around more personal financial matters. I
am hoping that the conversations shifts from
technical questions about the card to more in-
depth conversations about financial learnings and
financial health.”
And, Barclays too is exploring this space with the
introduction of The Financial Planter series in
honor of Financial Literacy Month:
“Starting in May we will be introducing a year-long
series called “The Financial Planter.” We will spend
a few months on each stage, using the 2nd week
of every month for a specific topic related to that
stage. An in-depth blog post will be published on
Monday, then on Wednesday we will feature third-
party articles, set up a Q&A or interview an industry
expert to get another point of view. And, Friday will
focus on “fun” with a variety of Do’s/Don’ts, videos,
fun apps or other light-hearted materials to make
you smile.”
Paloma Vega, Director of Consumer Practice at
Andreoli MSL and member of the MSLGROUP
Insights Network, highlights the important of
financial literacy for consumers and banks alike.
Source: peopleslab.mslgroup.com

8. People’s Lab is MSLGROUP’s proprietary
crowdsourcing platform and approach that
helps organizations tap into people’s insights for
innovation, storytelling and change.
The People’s Lab crowdsourcing platform
helps organizations build and nurture public
or private, web or mobile, hosted or white
label communities around four pre-configured
application areas: Expertise Request Network,
Innovation Challenge Network, Research &
Insights Network and Contest & Activation
Network. Our community and gaming features
encourage people to share rich content, vote/
comment on other people’s content and
collaborate to find innovative solutions.
The People’s Lab crowdsourcing platform
and approach forms the core of our distinctive
insights and foresight approach, which consists
of four elements: organic conversation analysis,
MSLGROUP’s own insight communities, client-
specific insights communities, and ethnographic
deep dives into these communities. The People’s
Insights Quarterly Magazines showcase our
capability in crowdsourcing and analyzing
insights from conversations and communities.
People’s Lab:
Crowdsourcing Innovation & Insights
Learn more about us at:
peopleslab.mslgroup.com | twitter.com/peopleslab

9. For People’s Lab solutions, contact
pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com