British bank Barclays this morning said its pre-tax profits dropped by 6 per cent to £3.2 billion sterling (€5 billion) last year.
The company said it had been hit by a large rise in loan-loss provisions.
Bad-debt provisions rose by more than 30 per cent to £1.48 billion compared with £1.15 billion in 2001 due to bad debts in Argentina, collapses in the telecoms and energy sectors and difficulties at Barclays Capital, the bank said.
Analysts had expected pre-tax profits at the bottom of forecasts which ranged between £3.2 billion and £3.4 billion against a restated £3.4 billion in 2001.
Shares rose by 4p to 346p in early trading as the jump in bad-debt provisions proved not as bad as analysts had feared. Mr Matt Barrett, chief executive, said the bank had delivered "resilient" results in an environment "much worse than expected".
"The environment looks challenging but not alarming," he said.
Barclays said its risk tendency - which measures loans expected to go bad - was expected to rise to £1.37 billion from £1.24 billion in 2002.
AFP