Pre-tax profits at Barclays Wealth rose by 9 per cent to £122 million (around $196.6 million) in the nine months to the end of September this year compared with the same period last year, driven by strong income growth, Barclays, its UK-listed parent banking group, said today.

Impairment charges were “slightly lower” than in 2009, Barclays said in an interim statement about its wealth management operations.

Since the year-end, assets under management at Barclays Wealth have risen by 5 per cent to £158 billion.

“We continue to invest in the Barclays Wealth strategic investment programme and investment costs are anticipated to be approximately £80 million in H2 versus £33 million in H1,” the firm said.

Across the Barclays group as a whole, its pre-tax profit for the first nine months of 2010 was £4.274 billion, a year-on-year rise of 4 per cent; profit after tax was $3.206 billion, up 1 per cent.

At the end of September, Barclays said it had a Core Tier 1 capital ratio of 10 per cent, unchanged on the year before.

Barclays said its investment management profit before tax was £55 million (2009: £2 million) principally reflecting dividend income from the firm's 19.9 per cent holding in BlackRock, the US asset management giant.