Barclays' New Personal, Corporate Banking Arm Says H1 Income Rose Slightly

Tom Burroughes

30 July 2014

The newly-formed Personal & Corporate Banking arm of UK-listed , which now includes its old wealth arm, said today its total first-half 2014 income rose 1.0 per cent year-on-year to £4.361 billion ($7.386 billion).

Earlier this year, the bank folded the old wealth and investment management business into the PCB business arm.

Net interest income at PCB rose 7 per cent year-on-year to £3.057 billion, it said in a statement today.

Pre-tax profit rose 23 per cent to £1.468 billion. The cost/income ratio of the division was 61 per cent, down from 69 per cent at the end of December last year.

“The wealth and investment management business has made great progress on its transformation journey and its contribution to PCB’s half year results reinforces the positive impact the strategy is having on its profitability and sustainability. The underlying business remains robust and well positioned for the future and it continues to secure significant new clients in target markets around the world,” Ashok Vaswani, head of Personal and Corporate Banking, said.

A view through the bank’s results statement did not yield a figure for assets under management held by clients in the old wealth and investment arm.

“Barclays Wealth and Investment Management (W&IM) has made strong progress in delivering the strategy announced last year to reposition the business. This has included simplifying the operating model and improving the control environment. We are already seeing the impact of these changes in the financial results with an improvement in the cost profile of the business driving strong PBT growth,” a spokesperson told this publication when asked about any figures. The bank said no AuM figure could be provided.

In the previous results for the first quarter of 2014, the Barclays Wealth and Investment Management arm reported total client assets at the end of March at £198.3 billion, down £3 billion from the end of last year. Barclays said its wealth and investment arm logged a 22 per cent rise in pre-tax profit when costs of its Transform programme are taken out.

The decision to create the PCB division – ending the wealth arm’s status as a stand-alone division – has caused controversy. It is understood that Peter Horrell, who was head of wealth and investment management and who is leaving Barclays at the end of this year, was prompted to step down. (To view an article about that story, see here.)

For the banking group as a whole, adjusted pre-tax profit fell 7 per cent to £3.349 billion, largely as a result, it said, of currency movements and a cut in the profits of the investment banking business; this was partly offset by the PCB results, and those of Barclaycard and its non-core area.