CEO of Barclays Steps Down Over Epstein Connection

Barclays CEO Jes Staley has quit after a probe into his links with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The City watchdog and Bank of England have been investigating if Mr Staley's relationship to the dead financier was closer than first thought.

Barclays said it had been made aware of the conclusions of the probe and "Mr Staley's intention to contest them".

Regulators began investigating after getting a cache of emails between the men from Mr Staley's former employer.

Barclays was 

"made aware on Friday evening of the preliminary conclusions from the FCA and the PRA of their investigation into Mr Staley's characterisation to Barclays of his relationship with the late Mr Jeffrey Epstein and the subsequent description of that relationship in Barclays' response to the FCA.

In view of those conclusions, and Mr Staley's intention to contest them, the board and Mr Staley have agreed that he will step down.

It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019."

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Barclays Hit By Fat Finger Error

Barclays Plc shares briefly dropped almost 10% in the opening minutes of Wednesday’s session, the most intraday in more than a year, in what traders said was likely due to an error known as a “fat finger.” 

Barclays market cap fell by £3.2BN temporarily because of this.

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SFO Case Against Three Former Barclays Executives Fails

Former Barclays executives cleared of fraud charges https://t.co/A60CPjSj7f

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) February 28, 2020

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Barclays Using Technology To Boost Productivity

Barclays has installed software on staff computers which monitors employee activity and delivers a pop-up message if they're deemed not to be working hard enough. https://t.co/wWn5Y1xC4p

— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) February 20, 2020

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NatWest Systems Crash

We’re aware of some issues on our Online and Mobile Banking services and are working hard to fix them. Telephone Banking and ATMs are available. Sorry and thanks for your patience.

— NatWest (@NatWest_Help) September 21, 2018

Customers of RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank are currently unable to access their accounts through the banking group's online and app platforms.

Yesterday it was Barclays today its NatWest, something very odd is happening!

CEO of Barclays Fined £642K By Regulators

Regulators have fined Barclays CEO James Staley £642,430 for failures in his handling of a whistelblower at Barclays.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority said he had "failed to act with due skill, care and diligence in the way he acted in response to an anonymous letter received by Barclays in June 2016".

Barclays must also now report annually to the regulators detailing how it handles whistleblowing, with "personal attestations" required from those responsible for the relevant systems and controls.

FYI:

October 2015 Barclays said Staley's annual pay will consist of a salary of 1.2 million pounds, a role-based “allowance” of 1.15 million pounds in shares, a cash allowance of up to 400,000 pounds and up to 5.5 million pounds in annual bonus.

Chickens Come Home To Roost At Barclays

Barclays CEO Jes Staley said he wouldn’t panic after one bad quarter. Now he’s had three https://t.co/5SAsk58Fo5 via @business

— Richard Partington (@RJPartington) October 26, 2017

The ATM's Fiftieth Birthday

50 years ago today the world's first ATM was unveiled at a Barclays branch in Enfield, London.

Reg Varney, a celebrity of the time, made the first withdrawal.

Barclays Out of Africa

Barclays to cut dividend and sell Africa unit - https://t.co/wTl2j8hQq3 https://t.co/HcE4Y6Ecoe via @FT

— Stanley Epstein (@StanleyEpstein) March 1, 2016

Barclays May Face $60M Fine

Bloomberg reports that Barclays Plc will probably be fined for violating a three-year-old settlement over interest-rate rigging, the amount of the fine may be up to $60M.

Barclays Introduce Bank Cam Technology

Barclays, in an effort to reduce people's dependency on branches (so that it can close them), intends to introduce a “Skype-like” video calling system to enable staff and customers to communicate with each other.

The Telegraph understands that the service will be introduced in the coming weeks.

The system will be available outside usual bank opening times.

The idea has merits, for those customers with the technology capable of video conferencing. However, it does pose security issues (eg there most certainly will be a risk of hacking).

Barclays Fined For Co-mingling

Barclays, the bank that likes to stay in the headlines, is to be fined £38M for breaching City rules requiring clients’ funds to be kept separate from its own assets (ie it was co-mingling).

The size of the fine is but small change for the bank, and does not inflict any pain on it whatsoever!

Nosferatu The Banker

Taking a hint from Nosferatu, Barclays has taken an interest in its customers' blood. Specifically the veins that carry the blood.

Barclays is launching a finger scanner for corporate clients, as it steps up use of biometric recognition technology to combat banking fraud.

Barclays has teamed up with Hitachi to develop a biometric reader that scans a finger and identifies unique vein patterns to access accounts, instead of using a password or PIN.

Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of Barclays personal and corporate banking, is quoted by Reuters:

"Biometrics is the way to go in the future. We have no doubt about that, we are committed to it.

You can't let these guys create a breach in the dam. You've got to constantly stay ahead of the game." 

Let us trust that the criminals don't resort to chopping people's fingers off in order to try to "breach the dam"!

The Dark Pools of Barclays

Barclays, a bank that likes to remain in the headlines, finds itself once more the subject of media attention. This time the subject is that of "Dark Pools" (anonymous trading venues that do not make any trading information available until after the trades have been completed).

New York's Attorney-general Eric Schneiderman has claimed that Barclays duped investors by telling them they were investing in a safe places, when in fact they were exposed to high frequency trading predators. As such, Barclays is being sued over claims it falsified marketing material to mislead people into investing in its dark pools.

 

Mr Schneiderman is quoted by the Telegraph:

“The facts alleged in our complaint show that Barclays demonstrated a disturbing disregard for its investors in a systematic pattern of fraud and deceit.

Barclays grew its dark pool by telling investors they were diving into safe waters. Barclays’ dark pool was full of predators – there at Barclays’ invitation.”

Mr Schneiderman alleged that Barclays removed from a marketing document, intended for institutional investors, the dark pool’s then largest participant – a high frequency trading firm Barclays knew engaged in predatory behaviour in the dark pool.

The attorney general's office quoted one Barclays employee as saying:

“I had always liked the idea that we were being transparent, but happy to take liberties if we can all agree.”

Another allegedly said:

"If we can help ourselves we should; it's in our control."

The attorney general's office claimed that Barclays "has never prohibited any trader from participating in its dark pool, regardless of how predatory its activity was determined to be" and gave "safe" ratings to traders that were found to be toxic.

"Barclays operates its dark pool to favour high-frequency traders and has actively sought to attract them by giving them systematic advantages over others trading in the pool." 

Barclays said in a statement:

“We take these allegations very seriously. Barclays has been cooperating with the New York Attorney General and the SEC and has been examining this matter internally. The integrity of the markets is a top priority of Barclays.”

This will be worth following.

Barclays - The Bad Bank

Barclays has increased its redundancy target this year to over 14,000, with 7,000 set to go from Barclays Capital (the current headcount of Barclays Capital numbers 26,000).

The redundancies are aimed at cutting costs and, more importantly, reducing the proportion of risk assets used by the investment bank.

A "bad bank" (non core division) will be set up to handle the process of shrinking the bank and £115BN of risk assets.

Barclays' Investment Bank Profits Fall

Barclays' investment banking division saw Q1 earnings fall from £1.31BN in 2013 to £668M in 2014. This fall was largely as a result of a 41% fall in fixed income, currencies and commodities profits.

However, by the magic of accounting, pre tax profits (on an adjusted basis wherein movements in the value of the bank's debt are stripped out) fell only 5% to £1.69BN.

Barclays Cuts 12,000 Jobs

Barclays is to cut 12,000 jobs from its 140,000 global headcount. The UK will bear the brunt of the cuts, with 7,000 expected to lose their jobs.

Theft of Barclays Database

Barclays has once again hit the headlines, this time its moment of fame comes from allegations that a database of 27,000 customers has been stolen and sold to rogue City traders.

Seemingly the files contain details of customers' earnings, savings, mortgages, health issues and insurance policies.

The leak was exposed by an anonymous whistleblower who passed the Mail on Sunday a memory stick containing files on 2,000 of the bank’s customers.

A Barclays spokeswoman is quoted by the Guardian:

“We are grateful to the Mail on Sunday for bringing this to our attention and we contacted the information commissioner and other regulators on Friday as soon as we were made aware.

Our initial investigations suggest this is isolated to customers linked to our Barclays financial planning business which we ceased operating as a service in 2011.

We will take all necessary steps to contact and advise those customers as soon as possible so that they can also ensure the safety of their personal data.”

A spokesman for the information commissioner’s Office said it was seeking further details and working with police on the case.

Barclays Bank Error In Your Favour - Collect £100M

I see that Barclays is fond of playing Monopoly, and has managed to create a bank error (for once in its customers' favour) that will entail a refund to affected customers (estimated at being around 300,000) of around £100M.

Barclays customers are to receive compensation because it miscalculated the interest owed on personal loans, the errors date back to October 2008.

Other divisions (Barclaycard, Barclays Wealth and Barclays Corporate) are now undertaking a review to see if customers were short-changed by the errors ("technical documentary errors").

Barclays will write to customers in the coming weeks. Barclays is quoted by the Telegraph saying that said it had "identified certain issues with the information contained in historic statements and arrears notices relating to consumer loan accounts. It is therefore implementing a plan to return interest incorrectly charged to customers".

A spokesman for the bank said:

"Barclays has proactively reviewed information it has historically sent to its customers relating to interest charges, where we have found technical documentary errors. As a result Barclays has identified certain issues with the information contained in some statements and arrears notices relating to consumer loan accounts. 

Due to these notification errors, interest was not due on certain accounts during the period that Barclays made this mistake, and whilst no one has been mis-sold to, customers are entitled to have their interest payments returned. No customer will pay more than they were ever contractually expected to. 

Barclays has notified the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which is responsible for consumer credit issues, and is implementing a plan to return interest payments to customers as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Barclays is undertaking a review of all its businesses where similar issues could arise to assess any related issues. 

Any affected customer will be contacted by Barclays and customers do not need to take any action."

To add to Barclays shame, campaign group Move Your Money said that Barclays was the lowest scoring financial institution out of 70 assessed, scoring four out of 100 possible points for honesty and customer service.

Well done Barclays!

Barclays £12.8BN Hole

Barclays has gone cap in hand to its shareholders today for £5.8BN via a rights issue, in order to help it plug a £12.8BN capital shortfall arising from the new Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) imposed safety buffer.

The Telegraph reports that rights issue will allow existing investors to buy one new share for every four they currently own at a price of 185p, a discount of 40% to they bank's closing share price yesterday. 

Barclays will also issue £2BN of bonds that are turned into shares or wiped out if the bank gets into trouble.

Additionally in its six months results for the first half of this year, Barclays has set aside £1.35BN against further PPI claims, bringing its total compensation fund to just under £4BN, and a further £650M for interest rate swap redress, increasing its provision to £1.5BN.

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins is quoted by the BBC, in a dig at the PRA, warns that plugging the hole will have a negative impact on the economy:

"It means Barclays will provide fewer financial transactions to big companies, life insurers and pension funds, inter alia, to help those giant institutions reduce their risks. And to be clear that will represent a tightening of credit for those customers, so there may be a negative economic impact."

Barclays share price is currently down 7% on the day.