Barclays has reported a 13% decrease in its attributable profit for the first quarter of 2024 (Q1 2024) to £1.55bn compared to £1.78bn in the same period last year.
The London-based investment bank’s total income dropped by 4% to £6.95bn in the quarter ended 31 March 2024, compared to £7.23bn reported in Q1 2023.
The basic earnings per share in Q1 2024 came down from 11.3p in Q1 2023 to 10.3p.
Total operating expenses for the bank in the reported quarter increased by 2% to £4.17bn from £4.11bn in the same period of the previous year. Barclays registered an impact of £120m during Q1 2024 from the Bank of England (BoE) levy scheme.
Its UK business saw the first quarter income drop 7% to £1.82bn from £1.96bn in Q1 2023. The attributable profit came down by 7% to £479m from the previous year’s profit of £515m.
The personal banking unit of the UK business had a 10% decrease in its Q1 2024 income at £1.12bn. The first quarter income of Barclaycard Consumer UK was down by 7% year-over-year (YoY) to £229m, while the business banking unit had a 2% surge to its income to £469m.
Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management earned an income of £312m in Q1 2024, an increase of 20% YoY.
On the other hand, Barclays Investment Bank registered a 7% decline in its Q1 2024 income to £3.3bn. Barclays US Consumer Bank contributed income of £859m in the reported quarter, which is an increase of 4% YoY.
The head office of Barclays Group had a 22% YoY surge in Q1 2024 income to £194m.
Barclays Group chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan said: “In Q124 Barclays delivered a RoTE of 12.3% as we progress towards our targets of >10% RoTE in 2024, and >12% in 2026.
“We are focused on disciplined execution of the plan that we presented at our Investor Update on 20th February. We have now announced the sale of our performing Italian mortgage book and are investing in our higher returning UK consumer businesses, including through the expected completion of the Tesco Bank acquisition in Q424.
“We continue to exercise cost discipline and remain well capitalised with a Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio at the end of the quarter of 13.5%.”
Earlier this year the British lender signed a deal to sell nearly $1.1bn of credit card debt in the US to Blackstone Credit & Insurance, in a move to expand lending capacity and reduce risk.
