Barclays bank, already rocked by an interest rate rigging scandal, unveiled two new US regulatory investigations into its financial probity and said third quarter profits fell by a fifth due to charges for the mis-selling of insurance.
Pre-tax profit, excluding provisions and accounting losses from revaluing the bank's own debt, rose to £1.73 billion (€2.14 billion), the London-based bank said in a statement today.
That beat the £1.71 billion median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
However, a £700 million charge for mis-selling payment protection insurance would have left profits down 23 per cent at £1.03 billion. Including a £1.1 billion loss on the value of its own debt would have dragged Barclays to a statutory loss of £47 million for the quarter.
The bank said performance during October had been affected by the "challenging economic environment and subdued market volumes".
The results are the first since Antony Jenkins took over as chief executive officer in August after Barclays was fined a record £290 million for manipulating Libor.
He has benefited from a rebound in fixed-income markets triggered by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi's July pledge to defend the euro with "whatever it takes."
"We continue to have good momentum in our businesses despite the difficulties we have faced," Mr Jenkins said today in the statement. "Our universal banking franchise remains strong and well-positioned."
Barclays's revenue from fixed income, commodities and currencies, known as FICC, rose 10 per cent from a year earlier to £1.58 billion in the third quarter, helping push investment-banking revenue 17 per cent higher to £2.63 billion.
Barclays said the US Department of Justice and US Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating whether its relationships with third parties who help it win or retain business are compliant with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The bank is already under investigation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and fraud prosecutor into payments to Qatar investors after the bank raised billions of pounds from them five years ago to save it from taking a taxpayer bailout.
It also said the United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is probing its US power trading business between 2006 and 2008 and could issue a notice of penalties as soon as today.
The bank said it reduced its holdings of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Cypriot debt by 15 per cent during the quarter.
Credit-impairment charges fell 7 per cent over the nine- month period.
Bloomberg/Reuters
