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Barclays Bank plc (Barclays plc)
54
LOMBARD STREET
LONDON, EC3P 4AH, ENGLAND
www.barclays.co.uk
UK Banks - Category Directory
Business Description
Barclays is an international financial services group engaged primarily in
banking, investment banking and asset management. In terms of market
capitalisation employed, Barclays is one of the largest financial services
groups in the UK. The Group also operates in many other countries and is a
leading provider of global services to multinational corporations and
financial institutions in the worlds main financial centres. Worldwide, the
Barclays Group had 2,916 branches at 31st December 2003.
The Group is organised in Strategic Business Units (SBUs), which are
supported by shared services. Each SBU has been tasked with identifying and
implementing value maximising strategies, and achieving these by creating
advantage for customers through superior products and services.
For reporting purposes, the SBUs have been organised into the following
business groups or clusters:
Personal Financial Services
Barclays Private Clients
Barclaycard
Business Banking
Barclays Africa
Barclays Capital
Barclays Global Investors
Business Banking
Business Banking provides relationship banking to the Groups large, medium
and small business customers in the United Kingdom. Customers are served by
a network of relationship and industry sector specialist managers who
provide local access to an extensive range of products and services, as well
as offering business information and support. Customers are also offered
access to business centres in continental Europe and to the products and
expertise of other businesses in the Group.
The strategy to accelerate business growth is underpinned by the Value
Aligned Performance Measurement (VAPM) system which is linked to targets and
reward. VAPM helps demonstrate the additional value that is generated
through the acquisition of new customers, together with the strengthening
and the expansion of relationships with existing customers.
Key business developments in 2003:
Business Banking has a relationship with over 730,000 customers and a
market share of some 21%.
Recent independent research found that customers rate Business Banking
first in the market for overall quality of service to Large and Medium
Businesses; and second for overall quality of service to Small Businesses.
Business Banking revenues were impacted by the Competition Commission
Inquiry transitional pricing remedy for small and medium business customers.
Business Banking responded by consulting with qualifying customers and
offered them a choice of either interest on current account or reduced money
transmission charges.
Medium Business targeted propositions to specific customer segments
including a Law Society accredited proposition for solicitors firms, a
sector where customer recruitment rose 70%.
Over 75% of ailing business customers referred to Barclays Business
Support during 2003 were returned to health and normal trading.
Average lending balances increased 11% to £47.0bn and average deposit
balances increased 5% to £46.2bn. Lending growth remained concentrated
towards better graded business customers and was well diversified by sector.
Barclays Capital
Barclays Capital is the investment banking division of Barclays, providing
corporate, institutional and government clients with solutions to their
financing and risk management needs.
The Barclays Capital business model is distinctive. It focuses on a broad
span of financing and risk management services in the interest rate, foreign
exchange, commodities and credit markets combined with certain capabilities
in equities. Activities are split between two areas: Rates, which includes
fixed income, foreign exchange, commodities, emerging markets, money markets
sales, trading and research, prime brokerage and equity related activities;
and Credit, which includes origination, sales, trading and research relating
to loans, debt capital markets, structured capital markets, and private
equity.
Barclays Capital works increasingly with other Group businesses, including
Barclays Private Clients, Business Banking and Barclays Global Investors, to
provide a more integrated customer service and to develop business
opportunities across the Group.
Key business developments in 2003:
Barclays Capital continued to improve its ranking in the global all debt
league table, to fourth position from fifth position in 2002.
Barclays Capital increased its issuance volume of international bonds and
syndicated loans to US$199bn compared to US$162bn in 2002.
Barclays Capital increased its issuance volume of European all debt to
US$140bn (2002: US$116bn) and ranked third in 2003 (2002: second).
Barclays Capital remained in first position for issuing sterling
denominated bonds with a 19% market share.
Barclays Capital improved its ranking to top ten in US investment grade
corporate bonds from 13th position in 2002 with market share more than
doubling.
Barclays Capital led 49 dollar denominated deals for US issuers in 2003
versus 24 in 2002 and only one prior to 2001.
E-commerce channels continued to see an increase in the volumes of
business processed; half of clients foreign exchange tickets were executed
electronically. Barclays Capital won several awards for e-commerce
initiatives in 2003.
Personal Financial Services
Personal Financial Services (PFS) provides a wide range of products and
services to 14 million personal customers throughout the United Kingdom,
including current accounts, savings, mortgages, consumer loans and general
insurance. These are available to customers through integrated channels
comprising the branch network, automated teller machines, telephone banking
and online banking.
PFS works closely with other businesses in the Group, in particular Barclays
Private Clients, Barclaycard and Business Banking.
Openplan from Barclays and The Woolwich is an integrated banking service
that links customers current account, savings and mortgage, allowing
customers automatically to switch money to earn a higher rate of interest,
avoid overdraft charges, offset credit balances against mortgage balances
and borrow at mortgage rates. Openplan offers access through the branch, on
the phone and over the internet.
Within PFS, the principal goal has been to do more business with more
customers. This has been achieved by building broader and deeper
relationships with the existing customer base as well as attracting new
customers. There has also been a focus on increasing risk-adjusted returns
and continuing to strengthen the quality of the lending portfolio.
Barclays Private Clients
Barclays Private Clients serves affluent and high net worth clients,
primarily in the UK and continental Europe, providing banking and asset
management services.
The businesses have continued to maintain a strong focus on improving
operational efficiency and developing a distinctive customer service.
The comparison with the 2002 results is impacted by the Caribbean business
being accounted for as an associated undertaking, following the formation of
FirstCaribbean on 11th October 2002, and by the acquisitions made during
2003.
The contribution recognised from the closed life assurance activities is
reported separately to provide increased transparency in the financial
reporting within Barclays Private Clients.
Barclays Private Clients works closely with other Group businesses,
particularly Personal Financial Services, Business Banking, Barclays Global
Investors and Barclays Capital, in order to enhance product development and
customer service.
Key business developments in 2003:
The retail stockbroking business Charles Schwab Europe was acquired on
31st January 2003. In May 2003, Barclays announced the acquisition of Banco
Zaragozano in Spain, which completed in mid-July. The acquisition of Gerrard
completed in mid-December 2003.
Barclays Private Clients businesses were constrained in 2003 by lower
average market levels and lower average interest rates than in 2002.
Globally affluent and high net worth client numbers increased 8% to
1,060,000.
Barclays Spain (excluding Banco Zaragozano) saw income rise 22% and
operating profit rise 36%.
Affluent customer numbers in Spain increased by 26% to 81,000. Openplan in
Spain attracted 15,000 new customers.
In Spain, the average products per customer was 3.2 increasing to 4.3 for
Openplan customers.
Banco Zaragozano operating profit for 2003 increased by 15%. In the period
since acquisition, Banco Zaragozano contributed operating profit of £18m.
Barclays Stockbrokers, including Charles Schwab Europe, saw average daily
deal volumes increase to 8,350 per day (2002: 6,300), maintaining a leading
market share in the UK of client order business.
With the acquisition of Gerrard, Barclays became the UKs largest private
client investment manager by funds under management.
The contribution from the closed long-term assurance funds was a loss of
£77m (2002: loss £87m) including redress for customers in respect of sales
of endowment policies.
Barclaycard
Barclaycard is one of the leading credit card businesses in Europe. In
addition to its operations in the United Kingdom, Barclaycard is active in
Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Italy and across Africa.
Barclaycard offers a full range of credit card services to individual and
corporate customers, together with card payment facilities to retailers and
other businesses.
Barclaycard continued to grow both its domestic and international businesses
through organic and non-organic activity in 2003.
Key business developments in 2003:
Barclaycard has 11.4 million customers, primarily in the UK and Europe. In
the UK alone, around one in every five credit cards is a Barclaycard.
Average extended credit balances amounted to more than 75% of total card
outstandings. Average extended credit balances in the UK grew 14% year on
year.
UK customer recruitment increased 27% to 1.5 million.
The number of customers registered for Barclaycard online services
increased 36% to 1.5m (2002: 1.1m).
Barclaycard International has 1.42 million cards in issue.
Barclaycard International achieved a full year profit of £4m (2002: loss
£14m). Income increased by 48% and average extended credit balances rose by
43%.
In April, Barclaycard purchased the global rights (excluding the UK and
Singapore) to use the Manchester United credit card brand.
Barclaycard acquired Clydesdale Financial Services, a retailer point of
sale of business, in May.
Barclaycard International entered the South African market in August
through a strategic alliance with the Standard Bank of South Africa.
Barclaycard, already established in Spain, is working with Banco
Zaragozano to accelerate growth from the established Barclaycard presence
and the existing Banco Zaragozano cardholder base.
Barclays Africa
Barclays Africa provides banking services to personal and corporate
customers in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and islands in the Indian
Ocean. The portfolio comprises banking operations in Botswana, Egypt, Ghana,
Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
Barclays is one of the leading international banks in the region serving
1.5m customers. The strategy is to develop and grow the franchise through
the migration of products skills and processes from other parts of the
Barclays Group.
Key business developments in 2003:
Continued a programme of reinvestment and restructuring, modernising the
business and positioning it for future growth.
Regional Head office functions were relocated from the UK to South Africa.
Increased investment was reflected in further branch refurbishment and
upgrading operating systems.
The integration of BNPI Mauritius, acquired in November 2002, was
completed and contributed to the growth of the business.
Barclays Global Investors
Barclays Global Investors (BGI) is one of the worlds largest asset managers
and a leading global provider of investment management products and
services. BGI offers structured investment strategies such as indexing,
tactical asset allocation and risk-controlled active products such as hedge
funds.
BGI also provides related investment services such as securities lending,
cash management and portfolio transition services. Barclays Global Investors
investment philosophy focuses on managing all dimensions of performance:
return, risk and cost.
Key business developments in 2003:
BGI had over 2,500 institutional clients in 47 countries.
Investment performance continued to be good in our active strategies. 2003
average alpha across active products was 1.36% above benchmark.
Several important milestones were achieved by 31st December 2003: total
assets under management exceeded US$1 trillion, of which more than US$200bn
were in actively managed assets; and for the first time total revenues
exceeded US$1bn.
£67bn net new assets were attracted in 2003. Approximately £25bn of net
new assets flowed into index products, £23bn into active products, £14bn
into Global iShares, Barclays brand of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and
£5bn into cash.
The active business accounted for over 60% of management fees and over 50%
of total income.
BGIs leading position in ETFs was extended with the launch of eight new
funds and it became the largest ETF manager in the world. Global iShares,
saw assets under management grow to US$69bn, up 97% (2002: US$35bn).
BGI is the largest global institutional asset manager of hedge fund
assets.
BGI results were significantly affected by exchange rate translation
movements.
UK Banks in the Directory
Barclays
HSBC
Lloyds TSB
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