Barclays’s South African subsidiary, Absa Bank, is buying up the private label store card portfolio of retail chain Edcon.

The £0.8bn deal will also see Absa and Edcon enter a long-term, strategic relationship under which Absa will provide retail credit to Edcon customers and Edcon will be responsible for all customer facing activities.

Edcon is a non-food retailer operating 1,167 stores in South Africa, Botswana Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia.

Completion is expected in the second half of 2012.

Barclays shares were up 5.2% by 10:59

BS