Britain’s second largest bank, Barclays, has announced it is to cut 7,000 more jobs from its investment banking arm over the next three years as it attempts to scale back operations and increase profitability.
The bank said that roughly a third of the jobs would go from its UK operation while the other two thirds would come from its operations in the rest of the world. That could include the investment bank’s UAE operation.
The job losses are on top of the 10,000 to 12,000 global job cuts announced in February.
In April, Barclays sold its UAE retail banking operation to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank for about Dh650 million. The bank’s Middle East and North Africa operation, comprising its investment banking, wealth and investment management, corporate banking and personal banking arms, continues to operate from Dubai.
A Barclays spokesman declined to say whether UAE jobs would be directly affected by the cuts.
Barclays also announced yesterday that it would establish a ‘bad bank’ to dispose of £115 billion of assets.
In early afternoon trading yesterday after the announcements, Barclays’ share price was up 4.8 per cent to 254.85 pence on London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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