Barclays has enjoyed a jump in profits, helped by a boost from its investment banking business.
Pre-tax profits hit £837m at the end of September, which is an increase of more than a third compared to the £619m gain made at the same point last year.
Despite this positive picture for the year, figures show the bank’s pre-tax profits had slowed in the third quarter, down 34 per cent from £1.3bn at the end of June.
The UK arm of the banking giant saw its profits slide 19 per cent to nearly £1.2bn on 30 September, from the £1.4bn reported at the end of last year.
Barclays also pointed out it had set aside provisions for UK customer redress of £1bn between July and September this year for compensation relating to payment protection insurance (PPI).
It said it also made an additional £600m provision in the third quarter of this year to reflect the current estimate of the impact of the revised complaints deadline proposed in Financial Conduct Authority in August.
The group announced in March that it was restructuring the business into three separate banks: Barclays UK, Barclays Corporate & International, and Barclays Africa.
Each arm will have its own board, chief executive, management team and certain operational services.
James Staley, group chief executive, said the banks continues to close the non-core parts of the business “as fast as possible”, including the sell-down of its stake in Barclays Africa.
“Taken together, the picture in the third quarter is one of strong progress against this agenda and our core businesses are performing well.
Mr Staley said the group is “on top of costs”, and its capital position is resilient, with “strong reasons for confidence” in meeting its target.
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Barclays’ third quarter results are “a bit of a curate’s egg”.
“The top line in its core business is growing, but profits have been pegged back by one-off items,” he said, adding however in the banking world, those one-off items do have a tendency to recur over and over again.
“Like Lloyds, Barclays has been hit by a big PPI charge as a result of the FCA’s decision to call time on complaints in 2019, rather than 2018 as had been expected.
“Barclays has also seen a pick-up in credit impairments, though some of this comes from a more prudent approach to modelling bad loans.”
Mr Khalaf also pointed out the bank has seen a £1.1bn black hole appear in its pension scheme, though said this was “no fault of its own”, as falling interest rates have caused its liabilities to balloon.
“Rising pension deficits have been a theme of this reporting season, and are an inevitable consequence of looser monetary policy.
