Barclays reported a better-than-expected profit for the first quarter on Thursday, as the British banking group succeeded in continuing its cost-cutting drive despite current inflationary pressures, particularly on the wage front.
The British bank's pre-tax profit for the first three months of the year came to 2.3 billion pounds, compared with 2.6 billion pounds last year, down 12%.
This performance was nevertheless better than the consensus of analysts, who were expecting an average of 2.2 billion pounds.
Barclays points out that its operating costs fell by 3% over the quarter, a reduction that stems mainly from its UK retail banking business, which is currently undergoing a "simplification" project.
The London-based bank, which has set itself the target of achieving a return on tangible equity (RoTE) of over 10% this year and at least 12% by 2026, reports that its RoTE was 12.3% in the first quarter.
Barclays - which plans to complete the acquisition of Tesco's retail finance business by the end of the year - also claims to be "well capitalized", with its Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio reaching 13.5% at the end of the quarter.
With a gain of over 4%, the share price was one of the biggest risers on the FTSE 100 index on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday.
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Barclays PLC is one of Britain's leading banking groups. The activity is organized around three sectors:
- commercial banking: at the end of 2023, owned 306 branches worldwide;
- financing, investment, and market banking: specialized financing (acquisitions, projects, etc.), portfolio management, transactions on the stock, interest, exchange, and raw material markets, stock trading, merger-acquisition consulting, investment capital, etc.;
- credit cards issuing.
At the end of 2023, the group managed GBP 538.8 billion in current deposits and GBP 399.5 billion in current credits.
Income breaks down geographically as follows: the United Kingdom (52.4%), Europe (9.9%), Americas (32%), Asia (5.4%), Africa and Middle East (0.3%).