(CercleFinance.com) – Barclays reported on Thursday a profit above expectations for the first quarter, the British banking group having managed to continue its cost reductions despite current inflationary pressures, particularly on the wages side.
The British bank’s pre-tax profit reached 2.3 billion pounds in the first three months of the year, compared to 2.6 billion pounds last year, a decline of 12%.
This performance is nevertheless higher than the consensus of analysts, who expected on average 2.2 billion pounds.
Barclays points out that its operating costs fell by 3% over the quarter, a reduction which mainly comes from its retail banking activity in the United Kingdom which is currently the subject of a ‘simplification’ project.
The London establishment, which has set itself the objective of achieving a return on tangible equity (RoTE) of more than 10% this year and at least 12% by 2026, indicates that this came out at 12.3% in the first quarter.
Barclays – which plans to complete the acquisition of Tesco’s personal financing activities by the end of the year – also says it is ‘well capitalized’ with a solvency ratio known as ‘Common Equity Tier 1’ (CET1). ) which reached 13.5% at the end of the quarter.
With a gain of more than 4%, the stock signed one of the biggest increases in the FTSE 100 index on Thursday on the London Stock Exchange.
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