Could Discover Be a Target for UK Bank Barclays?

Seems yesterday’s unmarriable children analogy in describing Discover may have been premature. From the school of “every old sock meets an old shoe” comes news of Barclays, the largest credit card issuer in the U.K., sidling up to the soon-to-be released Discover all, “How you doin’?”

Or, at least, that’s the gossip the yentas at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods are spreading, telling the Evening Standard that the purchase could be “strategically very attractive for Barclays.” For the moment, no one’s buying anything yet.

Earlier this month, in Merrill Lynch’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, Merrill Lynch suggested that the U.S.’s Bank of America might be a good match for Barclays: "Bank of America has previously indicated that the next phase of its expansion is to become a leading global commercial and investment bank. In order to achieve that goal, we believe Bank of America is very interested in acquiring Barclays," Merrill Lynch said in a note to clients.

Barclays declined to comment on the suggestion, but other analysts, in between sniffs of perfume inserts in the latest issue of Vogue, pointed out cattily that the scale of the deal could be beyond its reach.