Barclays set aside £500 million for currency rigging fines

Barclays, the UK's second biggest bank by assets, said third-quarter profit unexpectedly rose, as it set aside £500 million to cover the cost of settling an investigation into currency rigging.

Adjusted pretax profit rose to £1.59 billion from £1.39 billion in the year-earlier period, the London-based bank said in a statement today.

That beat the £1.1 billion average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Pretax profit in the investment bank dropped to £284 million from £465 million a year earlier.

Chief executive officer Antony Jenkins has set up a bad bank and cut thousands of jobs to make the lender more profitable since the Libor-rigging scandal cost his predecessor, Robert Diamond, his job in 2012.

While the CEO pledged to overhaul the bank’s culture, his efforts have been overshadowed by probes into its dark pool and currency markets.

"These are good results," Citigroup analysts led by Andrew Coombs said in a note.

“Barclays’s transition from investment banking towards retail banking continues, with the three retail divisions accounting for 80 per cent of third- quarter core profitability.”

The shares rose 2 per cent to 224.85 pence at 8.16 am in London. They have dropped about 17 per cent this year, the second-worst performance among the five largest British lenders.

Bloomberg