Barclays banks soaring quarterly profit

LONDON: British bank giant Barclays on Thursday logged soaring third-quarter net profits, buoyed by the absence of restructuring and mis-selling charges -- and by improving UK profitability despite looming Brexit.

The performance was also boosted after Barclays shed non-core activities in order to refocus on main markets Britain and the United States.

Earnings after taxation jumped to £583 million ($770 million, 653 million euros) in the three months to the end of September, compared with £414 million a year earlier, Barclays said in a statement. Pre-tax earnings leapt by almost a third to £1.1 billion.

British division Barclays UK logged a net profit of £423 million, despite uncertainty surrounding the UK's exit from the European Union. That contrasted sharply with a net loss of £163 million a year earlier.

"The third quarter of 2017 was particularly significant for Barclays as it was the first for many years in which we have not been in some state of restructuring," said chief executive, Jes Staley.



He added: "We did however see an improvement in profitability in Barclays UK, and a good underlying return from our consumer, cards and payments business, which partially offset the under-performance in markets." Barclays has now offloaded all non-core activities as part of its global strategic re-think.

"We now have high confidence in our capacity to assert when Barclays will start to deliver the economic performance which we know this group is capable of, and therefore today we are announcing new targets for 2019 and 2020 for Barclays," added Staley.

The group also unveiled proposals to ring-fence retail banking operations in order to help it withstand another global financial crisis. The move will help it meet regulatory rules that demand all British banks with more than £25 billion of UK deposits section off retail operations from riskier investment banking activities by 2019.

"Barclays intends to satisfy this requirement by setting up a ring-fenced bank, Barclays Bank UK plc, which will be separate from Barclays Bank plc," the group added in a separate statement.



"The two entities will operate alongside, but independently from, one another as part of the Barclays Group under Barclays PLC."

The quarterly results were also lifted by the absence of further charges against the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) in a long-running scandal which has blighted the sector.

Barclays had already set aside £700 million in the first six months of this year, taking its total PPI compensation provision to £9.1 billion.