Barclays Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Barclays EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.56
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.42

Barclays Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $8.52 billion
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Barclays Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 10/24/2024
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 4:30AM ET

Barclays (NYSE:BCS) (NYSE: BCS) is a diversified financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1690, it has developed from a London-based banking business into an international group serving individuals, businesses, institutions and governments.

Barclays’ principal activities include consumer and business banking, residential mortgages, savings and lending products, credit cards, payments, and wealth management. Through its investment banking operations, the company provides corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions advice, equity and debt underwriting, markets services, research, risk management and other advisory services to corporate, institutional and government clients.

The company serves customers primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, while its corporate, investment banking and markets activities operate across major financial centers worldwide. Barclays organizes its business around UK banking, private banking and wealth management, investment banking, and U.S. consumer banking and related international operations.

Barclays Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Barclays is on track with its three-year plan, delivering a 12.3% RoTE in Q3 (11.5% YTD) while growing tangible book value to 3.51p per share through strong organic capital generation and share buybacks.
• Total income in Q3 was £6.5 bn (£19.8 bn YTD) with a stable income mix, and the bank has upgraded its NII guidance for Barclays UK and group thanks to ongoing support from its structural hedge in a falling-rate environment.
• Credit performance remains robust with a group loan-loss rate of 37 bps in Q3 (42 bps YTD), and the CET1 ratio of 13.8% sits comfortably within the 13–14% target range.
• Divisionally, Barclays UK achieved a 23.4% RoTE and will complete the Tesco Bank acquisition on 1 November to expand unsecured lending and deposits, while the Investment Bank delivered an 8.8% RoTE with positive cost-income jaws and the US Consumer Bank improved to a 10.9% RoTE with lower impairments.
• Simplification actions are on track, with £300 m of gross cost savings this quarter (£700 m YTD) toward a £1 bn annual target, the sale of non-core Italian mortgage portfolios, and two-thirds of the £750 m share buyback completed as part of a plan to return over £10 bn of capital by 2026.

Presentation

[Operator]

I will now hand over to C.S. Venkatakrishnan, Group Chief Executive, before I hand over to Anna Cross, Group Finance Director.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Barclays' third quarter 2024 results call. As a reminder, at our investor update in February, we set out a three-year plan to deliver a better run, more strongly performing and higher returning Barclays. I'm encouraged by our progress three quarters in. We are continuing to execute in a disciplined way against this plan and are on track to achieve our 2024 as well as our 2026 targets. Return on tangible equity was 12.3% in the third quarter and 11.5% year to date. We achieved this even as we grew tangible book value by GBP 0.35 per share year on year, to GBP 3.51 at the end of the quarter. This resulted from strong organic capital generation and the meaningful impact of buybacks in reducing our share count.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Total income for Q3 was GBP 6.5 billion and is GBP 19.8 billion year to date, with a continued focus on the quality and stability of our income mix. Given the ongoing healthy support from our structural hedge, we remain confident on the strength of the income profile of our business in a falling rate environment. These factors lead to our upgrading Barclays UK, as well as group NII targets today. We continue to control costs well and are seeing the benefit of the cost actions which we took in the fourth quarter of 2023. Our cost-to-income ratio was 61%, both in the third quarter and year to date.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Impairment charges have improved in the U.S. Consumer Bank, in line with our expectations, and our overall credit performance was strong, particularly in the U.K., with a group loan loss rate of 42 basis points year to date and 37 basis points in the quarter. Importantly, we also remain well capitalized, ending the quarter with a 13.8% CET1 ratio, comfortably within our target range of 13% to 14%. Across the bank and within each of our five divisions, we are focused on delivering an improved operational and financial performance. Anna will take you through our financial performance division by division shortly, but let me cover first a few highlights. Barclays UK delivered a return on tangible equity of 23.4% for the quarter and over 20% year to date.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

We have seen a continued stabilization in deposit balances and growth lending trends are encouraging. We are on track to complete the acquisition of Tesco Bank on the first of November this year. This strategic relationship with the UK's largest retailer forms part of our commitment to invest in our home market, where Barclays has a crucial role to play in mobilizing the finance and investment which is required to deliver growth. Our partnership with Tesco will help create new distribution channels for our unsecured lending and deposit businesses, and our expertise in partnership cards, developed over decades in the US, will further enhance the well-established Tesco Clubcard loyalty scheme. In the Investment Bank, we are committed to delivering improved RWA and operational productivity to drive higher returns. ROTE for Q3 was 8.8%.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Year on year, the Investment Bank has delivered positive cost-to-income jaws and improved market share in Investment Banking. And the U.S. Consumer Bank delivered an improved ROTE performance at 10.9% as we continue to grow the business and drive operational improvements, while impairment charges reduced against the background of subdued inflation and a strong labor market. Overall, as an organization, we remain execution focused. We achieved a further GBP 300 million of gross cost savings this quarter, taking the total for the first nine months to GBP 700 million, on track for our targeted GBP 1 billion for the full year of 2024. Simplifying the bank has been an important part of our strategy. We continue to make progress with the non-strategic business disposals that we spoke about at our investor update.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Earlier this week, we announced the sale of our non-performing Italian mortgage portfolio. Finally, we are about two-thirds of the way through executing the GBP 750 million pound share buyback, which we announced in the first half of the year, which, together with the first half dividend, is the first step towards achieving our target of greater than GBP 10 billion pounds of capital return by 2026. I will now hand over to Anna to take you through our third quarter financials.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thank you, Venkat, and good morning, everyone. On slide six, we have laid out Barclays' financial highlights for the third quarter as well as year to date. Profit before tax was GBP 2.2 billion, up 18% from GBP 1.9 billion in Q3 2023. Before going into the detail, I would just note that the quarterly performance was impacted by a weaker U.S. dollar, which is a headwind to income and profits, but positively impacts costs, impairments, and RWAs. I'll call these out where appropriate. Turning to slide seven. Q3 performance is in line with the plan we laid out in February. We delivered a statutory ROTE of 12.3%, up on last year's 11%.... and the year-to-date ROTCE of 11.5% leaves us on track for our statutory ROTCE target for 2024 of greater than 10%.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

We continue to target a 2024 ROTCE, excluding inorganic activity, of circa 10.5%. We now expect that the impact of all inorganic activity in 2024, including Tesco Bank, will be broadly neutral, so I don't anticipate a material difference between the two measures. As in the first half of the year, I was looking for four things in our performance: income stability, cost discipline and progress on efficiency savings, credit performance, and a robust capital position. On all four, we are where we expected to be, and I'll cover these in more detail on the subsequent slides. Starting with income on Slide 8. Total income was up 5% year-on-year at GBP 6.5 billion. Excluding FX, income was up 7% year-on-year. Since our investor update in February, we have been emphasizing continued stability in our income stream.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Revenues from retail and corporate, as well as financing in the Investment Bank, provided ballast to our income profile and together contributed 74% of income in Q3. Turning to net interest income on Slide 9. Group NII, excluding Investment Bank and Head Office, was stable year-on-year at circa GBP 2.8 billion. We now expect our full year group NII to be greater than GBP 11 billion. Within this, we have increased NII guidance for Barclays UK to circa GBP 6.5 billion, having previously guided to circa GBP 6.3. Both numbers exclude the impact of the Tesco Bank acquisition. We also now assume a UK bank rate of 4.5% by the end of the year, or a total of 325 basis point cut in 2024, compared to the 5 we had assumed in February.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Deposits continue to stabilize, and increased structural hedge income continued to provide a strong tailwind, as you can see on Slide 10. As a reminder, the structural hedge is designed to reduce volatility in NII and manage interest rate risk. As rates have risen, the hedge has dampened the growth in our NII, and in a falling rate environment, we will see the benefit from the protection that it gives us. The expected NII tailwind from the hedge is significant and predictable. £12.4 billion of aggregate gross income is now locked in over the three years to the end of 2026, up from £11.7 billion at Q2. We have around £170 billion of hedges maturing between 2024 and 2026, at an average yield of 1.5%.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

As we said in February, reinvesting around three quarters of this at around 3.5% would compound over the next three years to increase structural hedge income in 2026 by circa GBP 2 billion versus 2023. Given the high proportion of balances hedged and the programmatic approach we take, we are relatively insensitive to the short-term impact of potential rate cuts. Please note that we have added additional disclosure on slide 38 in the appendix on the split of the structural hedge income allocation across our five divisions. Moving on to costs on slide 11. Total costs in Q3 were flat year-on-year at GBP 4 billion. Excluding FX, costs were up 2% in the same period. We delivered a further GBP 0.3 billion of gross efficiency savings, bringing the total for the nine months to GBP 0.7 billion.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

These efficiencies have helped us to more than offset inflation and created capacity for investment. We remain on track to deliver GBP 1 billion for the year and continue to expect a further GBP 1 billion of efficiency savings across 2025 and 2026. Our cost-to-income ratio was 61% in Q3, and for the nine months year-to-date, we remain on track for our full year target of around 63%. Turning now to impairment, where credit conditions continue to trend positively and in line with our expectations. The Q3 impairment charge of GBP 374 million equated to a loan loss rate of 37 basis points. The U.S. consumer bank charge reduced to GBP 276 million, a loan loss rate of 411 basis points, which benefited from methodology enhancements in the quarter.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Our UK customers continued to act prudently, with few current signs of stress, evidenced by continued low and stable delinquencies. The Barclays UK charge was just sixteen million, a loan loss rate of three basis points, and this included a post-model adjustment release of around fifty million. I'd remind you that under IFRS 9 accounting, we expect to incur a day one impairment charge for the Tesco unsecured lending balances on completion in Q4. As we said in February, the Tesco Bank acquisition, alongside our broader UK balance sheet growth plans, are factored into our guidance for the Barclays UK loan loss rate to track towards thirty-five basis points over the life of our three-year plan.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

All in all, we reiterate our through-the-cycle guidance of 50-60 basis points for the group and expect FY 2024 to be at the bottom of this range, inclusive of the estimated day one impact of Tesco Bank. Excluding the impact of Tesco Bank, we would expect to be below this range, as we are seeing limited signs of stress in our UK customer base, and our guidance for the US Consumer Bank impairment charge to improve overall in the second half remains unchanged. Looking now in more detail at the US Consumer Bank charge on Slide 13. The mix of reserve build to write-offs within the impairment charge for the US Consumer Bank continues to trend as we guided. We expected write-offs to increase during 2024, which you can see is the case from the light blue bars on this page.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thirty- and ninety-day delinquencies are broadly stable, and we expect them to follow seasonal trends. There is no change to our impairment guidance. As mentioned, we still expect the US Consumer Bank impairment charge to improve overall in the second half, resulting in a lower full-year charge in twenty twenty-four versus twenty twenty-three, and we continue to guide to a loan loss rate trending towards the long-term average of four hundred basis points. Our coverage ratios remain strong. Our IFRS 9 coverage ratio reduced seventy basis points quarter on quarter to 10.3%, primarily driven by a debt sale, whilst our CECL coverage ratio increased twenty basis points to 8.1%. Before going into individual business performance, let me say a few words on the lending trends that we are seeing.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Gross lending activity is encouraging across our portfolios, reflecting our focus on growth in the U.K. In mortgages, we are seeing a pickup in gross lending with increased flow in higher loan-to-value lending, and customer confidence is also returning with strong purchase activity from first-time buyers and home movers. In a similar vein, U.K. card acquisition volumes remain strong. We have added around 800,000 new Barclays customers this year, consistent with our strategy to regain market share in unsecured lending. In the U.K. Corporate Bank, we have extended client lending facilities by deploying around 1.2 billion additional RWAs this year, which we expect to drive lending balance growth as customers draw down, and we have seen some evidence of this in Q3. Turning now to Barclays UK. You can see Barclays UK financial highlights and targets on Slide 15, but I will talk to Slide 16.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

RoTE was 23.4% in the quarter, and total income was GBP 1.9 billion, up GBP 73 million year on year, or 4%. NII of GBP 1.7 billion was up GBP 69 million on Q2, as NIM increased by 12 basis points to 3.34%. As you can see on the bottom chart, we saw continued structural hedge momentum and small tailwinds from product margin and lending volume. We have updated our 2024 Barclays UK NII guidance to circa GBP 6.5 billion from circa GBP 6.3 billion, excluding Tesco Bank, reflecting balance sheet trends turning more positive earlier than expected.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Non-NII was £280 million in Q3, and we continue to expect a run rate above £250 million per quarter going forward, although we expect the securitization that we announced earlier in the week to have a modest negative impact on non-NII in Q4. Total costs were circa £1 billion, down 4% year on year and versus Q2, demonstrating continued progress on delivering efficiency savings from the ongoing BUK transformation. The cost-to-income ratio improved to 52% this quarter. Moving on to the Barclays UK customer balance sheet on Slide 17. The stabilization in deposit trends that we called out at Q2 has continued in Q3. Deposit balances reduced by £0.5 billion in the quarter, a similar quantum to Q2. Net lending was broadly flat in the quarter at £199 billion.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Within this, we saw growth in mortgages, cards, and unsecured personal lending, offset by continued paydown of run-off portfolios, notably government-backed lending in Business Banking. As Venkat mentioned, we have made good progress on the acquisition of Tesco Bank. Following the court process last week, we will complete the acquisition on the first of November, with estimated financials to be confirmed at full year 2024 results. The current estimated day one financial impact is a circa GBP 0.3 billion net positive profit before tax, driven by an income gain resulting from consideration paid being below fair value, which is partially offset by a day one impairment charge. The impairment charge assumes all balances are acquired as stage one loans, reflecting 12 months expected losses, with subsequent impairment builds required in future years. The profit before tax benefits statutory group ROTE in 2024 by about 50 basis points.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Overall, when including the circa 7 billion RWAs, we expect to see around a 20 basis points negative impact to the group CET1 ratio, which is lower than the circa 30 basis points previously guided. Moving on to the UK Corporate Bank. UK Corporate Bank delivered Q3 ROTE of 18.8%. Income grew 1% year on year to GBP 445 million. Non-NII was flat year on year, but down in the quarter, mainly due to lower income from transactional products. This line can be variable due to the inclusion of non-product items such as liquidity pool income. However, we do expect non-NII to increase over time as we invest in our digital and lending propositions. Total costs were flat year on year at GBP 222 million, with future investment spend expected as we continue to support our growth initiatives.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Lending balances decreased by GBP 0.9 billion in the quarter, as underlying growth was more than offset by a circa GBP 2 billion reduction due to refinements to the perimeter with the International Corporate Bank. This same adjustment also impacted deposit balances. Turning now to Private Banking and Wealth Management on Slide 22. Q3 ROTE was 29%, supported by strong growth in client assets and liabilities, up around GBP 3 billion on Q2 and around GBP 23 billion versus the prior year. Income reduced 3% year on year, driven by lower NII from the non-repeat of a timing-related one-off in Q3 2023, which offset growth from increased client assets and liabilities. Versus Q2, NII was up 1%, driven by increased client balances overall. Costs were up 3% year on year as we continued to invest in this business, including in growing platforms, hiring and efficiency-related measures.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Turning now to the Investment Bank. Q3 ROTE was 8.8%, up 0.8% year on year. Total income of £2.9 billion was up 6% year on year and total costs up 4%, delivering positive cost-to-income jaws. Excluding FX, total income was up 9% year on year and costs up 7% year on year. RWA productivity, measured by income over average RWAs, was 5.7% in the quarter, 30 basis points better year on year, with year-to-date RWA productivity at 6%. Period end RWAs were 9.1 billion lower versus Q2 at 194 billion, with FX accounting for around £6 billion of the move. At Q2, we had an uptick in RWAs, which I said was temporary in nature. The reduction we've seen this quarter, excluding FX, is a reversal of that.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Now, looking at the specific income line in more detail on Slide 25. Using the U.S. dollar figures as usual to help comparison to our U.S. peers, Markets income was up 7% year on year. FICC income was up 7%, driven by a strong performance in credit, securitized products, and fixed income financing. Equities income was up 7%... volatility in August. Financing income was up 6% year on year, reflecting increased client flows and balances, with this business delivering more than $750 million in four of the last seven quarters. Investment banking fee income in dollars was up 67% year on year, with gains across all products, in particular, a strong quarter in advisory, which was up 146%. DCM was up 55%, delivering improved performance across both investment grade and leveraged finance.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

ECM was up 9% against a wallet that was down 6%. Our year-to-date banking fee share was 3.5%. We have increased share across most products in a rising industry wallet, but we still have work to do to sustainably improve this. Finally, in the International Corporate Bank, Transaction Banking was up 5%. We continued to grow US deposit balances, which we see as a lead indicator of future client product take-up and fee income growth. This was more than offset by a GBP 85 million impact from fair value losses on leveraged finance lending, which are reported in corporate lending, resulting in total ICB income being down 21% year on year. Turning now to the US Consumer Bank.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

US Consumer Bank generated a ROTE of 10.9%, up from 0.4% in Q3 last year, mainly due to the lower impairment charge following a higher provision build in the second half of 2023. Income fell 2% year on year, driven by a weaker US dollar. Excluding FX, income was up 2%, driven by an increase in card balances, which were up $1.4 billion year on year on a reported basis to $31.6 billion. NIM was stable on Q2 at 10.4%, but down from 10.9% in the prior year, reflecting higher rewards earned by customers through increased spend. In Q4, these impacts are expected to be less of a headwind, and we continue to target a NIM for this business of greater than 12% by 2026.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

In terms of the funding mix of the business, the proportion of core deposits was broadly stable versus Q2 at 66%, as we target above 75% by 2026. Costs were down 3% on the prior year, as efficiency savings and the FX tailwind offset inflation and growth, driving a cost-to-income ratio of 50%. Excluding FX, costs were up 1%. We still expect costs to trend up modestly in Q4 as marketing spend during the holiday season will support continued growth in the business. Turning now to slide 28 and a summary of the financial impacts from inorganic activity announced in 2024. As a reminder, at our Q2 results, we announced the disposal of our performing Italian mortgage portfolio and the German card business.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Earlier this week, we announced the disposal of our non-performing Italian mortgage portfolio, which is expected to complete in Q4 2024. These disposals, along with the Tesco Bank acquisition, have a broadly neutral impact on statutory 2024 group ROTE, whilst causing a circa 10 basis points drag to the CET1 ratio. These transactions are a key component of reshaping the bank to be more focused in areas we have competitive strengths, enabling us to deliver higher future returns. Turning now to the balance sheet and starting with our capital position. The CET1 ratio was 13.8% at the end of Q3, up 24 basis points versus Q2, and comfortably within our target range.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

This includes the impact of the ongoing GBP 750 million half-year buyback that came off capital post the Q2 quarter end, 46 basis points of capital generated from profits in the quarter, and a GBP 4 billion reduction in RWAs, excluding FX. We continue to expect this year's total capital return to be broadly in line with the 2023 level of GBP 3 billion, consistent with the capital distribution plan we laid out in February. Let me turn briefly to our regulatory capital and the upcoming changes under Basel 3.1, as well as the U.S. cards model migration. The combined expected RWA impact of GBP 19-26 billion is in line with previous guidance of the lower end of 5%-10% of group RWAs as at the end of 2023. However, the timing has changed for both items.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

You will have seen that the PRA's Basel 3.1 implementation date moved to 1 January 2026, and the impact is expected to be between GBP 8 billion and GBP 15 billion post mitigation. The IRB migration of our U.S. cards portfolio has also moved from our prior expectation of Q1 2025 and will now take place after Basel 3.1 implementation, for which we are building a Basel-compliant model. The total impact to RWAs from the IRB migration still stands at circa GBP 16 billion, of which around GBP 5 billion will be reflected at the time Basel 3.1 is implemented and is now included in our Basel 3.1 impact estimate. The remaining GBP 11 billion relating to the IRB model will come after Basel 3.1 implementation at a date to be determined and is subject to model builds and portfolio changes over time.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Specific to this, there is likely to be a modest increase in Pillar 2A, applicable at some point in 2025 and until the model is implemented, reflecting the difference between models and the current standardized risk weighting, acknowledging we already hold Pillar 2A capital against the majority of this risk. As previously noted, the total impact of Basel 3.1 will also depend on further guidance from the PRA on the approach to Pillar 2A, where we expect some offsets for risks now to be capitalized under Pillar 1. Risk-weighted assets decreased by 11 billion from Q2 to 340.4 billion, as you can see in more detail on slide 31. FX drove around 7 billion of the reduction, with lower Investment Bank and Head Office RWAs also contributing. As usual, a brief word on capital and liquidity on slide 32.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

We maintain a well-capitalized and liquid balance sheet with diverse sources of funding and a significant excess of deposits over loans. Turning now to TNAV. TNAV per share increased GBP 0.11 in the quarter and GBP 0.35 year on year to GBP 3.51. Of the elements we control, attributable profit added GBP 0.11 per share in the quarter, and the share buyback, which reduced our share count by 2%, added GBP 0.02 per share. We have seen further unwind of the negative movement in the cash flow hedge reserve in 2022 to 2023, which caused a drag on shareholders' equity, and this added GBP 0.09 in the quarter. These positive moves were partially offset by dividends paid and other reserve movements. In summary, we remain focused on disciplined execution.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

This is the third quarter of progress against the targets that we laid out in February, which we are either reiterating today or upgrading. Thank you for listening. Moving now to Q&A. As usual, please could you keep to a maximum of two questions, so we can get around to everyone in good time.

[Operator]

If you wish to ask a question, please press star three point one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star three point two. Our first question comes from Jason Napier from UBS. Please go ahead.

[Jason Napier, Head of European Banks Research at UBS]

Good morning, Venkat. Good morning, Anna. Two questions on slide sixteen, please, which is the Barclays UK margin and NII walk. Just first, and I appreciate the reiteration of guidance around hedge tailwinds into next year, but I just noticed that the quarter on quarter tailwind there is, it's down about a third. And it looks to us like maturing swaps and incoming swaps should have been, you know, fairly stable, down about thirty basis points each in the period. And so I just wonder how you think about the sort of quarter-to-quarter volatility around this component of NII, trying to avoid a situation where we, you know, we worry unduly about, you know, near-term dynamics from that. And then secondly, on that same chart, quite surprising to see the product margin as a net positive.

[Jason Napier, Head of European Banks Research at UBS]

Can I just confirm, please, that that includes whatever leads and lags on depository pricing there are? There's some feedback in the investment community that perhaps Barclays haven't been able to cut deposit rates as others have done, as rate cuts began. Just wonder whether you could talk about what you're seeing on deposit pass-throughs as rates start to decline, and just confirm that I'm looking at the right block when I look to track that going forward. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thanks, Jason. Good morning. Thanks for the questions. I'll take both of those. So just looking at slide 16, I can see why you're asking the question. The structural hedge impact is lower than the previous quarter. Last quarter, the product dynamic was negative, now it's positive, so I'll pick those up in turn. I mean, last quarter, we did have a slightly higher swap rate, as you point out, but we also topped up the hedge a little bit, particularly around Business Banking. That's now obviously in the run rate, so it's no longer causing that sort of quarter-on-quarter impact. Sort of going forward from here, we're gonna continue to see momentum from the structural hedge. You can see that from the other disclosures that we've given you, for example, on page 10.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So I still expect it to be a net tailwind overall to this business and really supporting, you know, the NII growth that we're seeing, so nothing more really than that. On the product margin, you're right, that does include all product margins, so it's including assets and liabilities. I think important to point out that some of the drags that we've seen historically are no longer there, so you're no longer seeing that really significant deposit drag from migration coming through. Actually, our mortgage position is broadly neutral from a churn perspective now, so you're no longer seeing that. What you are seeing is some positive momentum from both mortgage and card margins, which is a little bit offset by deposit pricing, as you point out.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

But actually, I'd expect, given the kind of regulatory lag that we have in deposit pricing, for that to be more meaningful, that lag impact to be more meaningful in the fourth quarter. So bit of a law of small numbers here because it is only a quarter-on-quarter movement, and it is only six, but that, that's the things that I would, I would call out.

[Jason Napier, Head of European Banks Research at UBS]

Thanks very much.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, perhaps we could go to the next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Benjamin Toms from RBC. Please go ahead.

[Benjamin Toms, Director Equities at RBC]

Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is, say thank you for the new disclosure around the structural hedge income, around how that should be allocated to the group. Someone like me, that's a bit like Christmas come early. One of your peers this week implied they expect the structural hedge notional to be flattish from here. Based on your guidance in February and movements in the notional since year-end, I think you're actually expecting a 13% reduction in the notional from here. Do you really expect to see such a big reduction going forward, given you mentioned just previously the stabilization in deposits, or can we assume that that assumption is now somewhat stale?

[Benjamin Toms, Director Equities at RBC]

And then, secondly, just to chance my luck on 2025, one of your peers guided to a gradual increase in NIM in 2025 in the U.K. Should we expect a similar trend at Barclays? Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, good morning, Ben. Thank you. I'll take both of those. So, yes, pleased to put that disclosure in on page 38, if you haven't seen it. I mean, we often talk about the structural hedge and the support that it gives to the UK. I guess, in absolute and percentage terms, that's where it is most meaningful, but it does provide support elsewhere in the group, particularly through the equity structural hedge. So you'll see there, perhaps surprising to many, that it's providing some support into the IB and because we allocate that equity portion by RWAs. So hopefully that's helpful.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

For the structural hedge notional, I'm not going to give you specific guidance, Ben, but what I would say is we'd expect it to sort of trend broadly in line with where the deposits are going. When we spoke in February, that was less guidance, more sort of a framework to help you model it as time goes on. So we talked about a hundred and seventy billion of maturing and rolling about three quarters of that. But that was designed really to give you the math that you could then update rather than a forecast itself.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So clearly, you know, as we look at the moment, there are some positives in there, but, you know, we will continue to update you as we go through, but I wouldn't call out anything more than we should expect it to move in line with deposits. On your second question, I'm not going to talk about NIM. NIM is going to be quite is going to move around quite a lot over the next few quarters. As you can imagine, we're about to onboard GBP 8 billion worth of unsecured lending. That's going to move the NIM materially. What I would really focus you on is actually the net interest income. So we've upgraded our net interest income for the group and for BUK in the current year. So now we're expecting circa GBP 6.5 billion for BUK.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

And if I take you back to what we said in February, we said we expected mid-single digit growth in NII in BUK. We still expect that. And what's driving that? Well, clearly, we've got asset growth coming through. What was a drag coming from deposits, we now see a stabilization, and hopefully as deposits start to grow across the market, we would see the same. And whilst we've got some uncertainty coming through from rate changes, I would offset that with the kind of momentum that we've got from the structural hedge. So we're expecting NII to be higher in 2025 and in 2026 than it has been in 2024, and that's obviously we would be putting Tesco on top of that. Okay, thanks, Ben. Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Chris Cant from Autonomous. Please go ahead.

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about Head Office, please.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Gosh, Chris, we can't, we can't hear you. Sorry. Could you start again, please? We picked up Head Office, but perhaps you could start your question again.

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

Yeah, can you hear me now?

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Yes, we can. Loud and clear. Thank you.

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

Hello?

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Yes.

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

Okay. Okay, great. So Head Office, I wanted to ask about looking into twenty five, twenty-six. Could you give us some color on what the sort of underlying group center numbers look like after the various mortgage books have gone and the German card books have gone? I think this is a source of significant dispersion within consensus, how people are thinking about sort of the underlying Head Office. And it has been an area where historically, consensus has got a little bit out of kilter with your own expectations. So any color on that? You know, once the transactions you've currently got in the pipeline are done, what does that group center income cost run rate look like?

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

And I appreciate that there's still the payments business in there, which may or may not go at some point, but sort of what, what's the sort of go-to run rate as things stand for the transactions, once the transactions you've got in train are done? And then on BUK and II, just a point of clarification. So it's mid-single-digit growth on the 2024 number, excluding Tesco, and then we put Tesco on top. So take essentially the £6.5 that you're now guiding, mid-single-digit growth on that, and then £400 million on top is what you're saying for 2025. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay. Thanks, Chris. Let me pick up both of those. So the first one, look, I appreciate Head Office has been a bit volatile in the current year, both because it's housing our inorganic activity and those businesses before they actually flow out. So just to remind you, there's no inorganic activity in the current quarter. You can also get some volatility in there from hedging. So, you know, we're seeing a bit of that in the quarter, but year to date, that is a zero number, and we expect it to be timing only. It's a bit early to guide you to what that run rate is, Chris, but we will do that in time.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

But just to remind you, nothing in the current quarter and just appreciate it's very difficult to model at the moment. But once we get beyond that, we'll give you more guidance. On the BUK NII, let me just clarify for you. So ex Tesco, I expect some increase. The mid-single digit guidance that we gave you for BUK did include Tesco, because that was from 2023 to 2026. So we included Tesco, obviously, in our RWA bridge to 30 billion, and it's included in the mid-single. So I would say overall, we're expecting some organic, add Tesco on top to that. Okay, is that clearer?

[Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous]

Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Edward Firth from KBW. Please go ahead.

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

Hi, morning, morning, everybody. Thanks for the questions. Sorry. Yeah, I had two questions. One was just on the BUK interest rate sensitivity. You know, it's quite striking that you're not highlighting it at all as an impact this quarter. And I think you said it was minimal or marginal, I can't remember your exact words, in terms of your sensitivity to rates falling going forward. And I'm just trying to understand any sort of commentary you could give to help us understand why that is. Is that just like a temporary thing? And as the hedge rolls off, then you would expect some more sensitivity, or is there something that you've sort of structurally changed?

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

Because obviously, on the way up, we saw NII grow very strongly on the back of high rates. So, that that's one question. And then the other question was on the US, the margin there. I get your comments about you're still targeting greater than 12, and you I think you said there was a lot of incentive programs or loyalty programs that you were running at the moment. I'm just again, any help you can give us to understand from a business perspective how that works, because I do know obviously in the US, loyalty program is a huge part of the business. It's a huge part of attracting volumes and customers, et cetera.

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

I'm just trying to think what is it you're expecting to change in the market more broadly, or how is your offering going to change, that's going to allow you to reduce those loyalty offerings, but still maintain momentum in the business? Thanks very much.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thanks, Ed. I will take both of those. On the first one, we gave you some guidance on the interest rate sensitivity in the previous quarter, and that really showed for a 25 basis points parallel shift. It was 50 million in the first year. And then what you saw was that build over time. And that build over time, the way I think about it, Ed, is in the first year, it's dominated by the lag effect. So there's sort of 60-day regulatory lag that we have, particularly in BUK. And then in the outer years, you see the impact of the hedge grinding lower in response to that parallel movement. So that's really what's going on there.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

If I go back to what I said in products, for that product margin on page 16, just to clarify, we've got two offsetting impacts in there. There is a negative movement from the delay in pricing or repricing, the liabilities. But there is an offset which is coming through from our asset margins, which are expanding. Now, you might expect that in a downward movement.

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

Mm-hmm.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

You know, sort of overall, we would expect that as liability margins start to compress, you see asset margins widening out. And of course, we've got specific actions around things like high loan-to-value mortgages, that are perhaps driving that a little bit faster. And so it's not that it's not there, it's just that there are-

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

Mm-hmm

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

... some offsets. Actually, I would expect a bit more of that lag, just because of the way the months sort of pan out in Q4. On your second question on U.S. margin, yes, the NIM is clearly lower than it was at the beginning of the year and indeed last year. But our expectation is that this is still a greater than 12% NIM business, and all of the actions that we are taking to underpin that are taking place. So in the current quarter, and if you look sort of sequentially across the last few quarters, there's a few things going on.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

There's natural seasonality in this business, so you see more purchase activity, more borrowing activity as you go into the holiday season, which is much more seasonal in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Mm-hmm.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So you'll see that natural shape. The second thing is, remember, we did that risk transfer in Q1. What that meant was we swapped out NII for fee income, but obviously it's ROTE accretive overall. So you see some movement in the geography of the P&L and the balance sheet. And then thirdly, as we've called out, there are a couple of things that we're just observing as a customer matter. Actually, I don't think they're unhelpful, but there are two. The first is that customers are. They're managing their balances well, they're repaying, perhaps a little bit faster than we expected. In the context of the broader discussions about the U.S. economy, I don't think that's unhelpful, and we see the other side of it in positive impairments. So we're not uncomfortable with that.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

The second point is that customers are using their rewards, not necessarily more, but faster than we would have previously expected. Again, long term for the franchise, why that, whilst that puts a bit of a headwind into near-term NIM, it means they're really engaged with the card, they're really engaged with the brand program, so it's good news. So that kind of explains Q3. As I go beyond Q3 and think about that build to greater than twelve, the things that we talked about in February were, number one, repricing. That repricing action has actually taken place. It's complete. But what happens is customers have to actually purchase under the new terms and conditions, so it's going to drip through into NIM over time. The second action was really around the funding mix. So we are now around 67% of retail funding.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

We want to get that to around 75%. That's gonna take a while for us to build, but we've launched the tiered savings products that will underpin that, and you'll see more on that in time.

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Mm-hmm.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Those things are really important. The last thing I would add is, a key part of that move to 12 is how we start to morph this portfolio towards having a richer mix in retail. You can see that we've announced our new partnership with GM. That, again, is another plank of this strategy. We're not gonna get to to 12 or greater than 12 immediately. You're gonna see it sort of emerge over the next few quarters. Greater than 12 is still our target, and we feel like we're on track.

[Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW]

Great. Thanks so much.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thanks, Ed. Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Guy Stebbings, from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Hi, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I had one on capital, then one back to product margins in the U.K. On capital and slide 30, thanks a lot for clarifying the various timings, including some of them as being pushed out in the U.S. consumer business. I'm just wondering if that changes how you'll manage capital. So in theory, it sort of frees up some capital in the next 12 months to perhaps distribute a little bit more early in the plan, or should we think that you'll more like to run at the very top end of the 13%-14% range, maybe even above it, especially if there's a Pillar 2A, you know, temporary uptick?

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Just thinking about how you think about that capital ratio during 2025 now, as we have to wait for 2026 for some of those wins to come through, and then on the product margins, just come back to that point in terms of the lag effects, and saying it might be more meaningful in Q4 in deposits. I would have thought there'd be some sort of catch up from the August rate cut, if you like, and, you know, you take the day one hit on the unhedged deposits, and you have to wait to pass some of it back on the rate cut.

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Can I just check that sort of thinking is correct, and your comment around the lag, the lag effect being greater in Q4 is maybe a reflection of an assumption of two rate cuts, and then maybe if it was just one rate cut, it wouldn't be as, you know, more powerful versus what you saw in Q3. Thanks.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thanks, Guy. I'll take both of those. I'm hoping Miriam is gonna get a question at some point. But just on the first one, around capital. Look, these regulatory movements that we set out for you on page 30 are timing and timing only. And, you know, we'd reiterate today our expectation about distributions here, so greater than 10 billion for the 3 years of the plan. And, you know, for the current year, we'd expect it to be broadly similar to last year, so around 3 billion. And we said in February that we would expect it to be progressive thereafter, and, you know, I just say exactly the same today. You know, Q4 is normally when we talk about distributions and we'll do so then.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

But we see this really around timing, and you would expect us to build capital as we head towards both Basel and the IRB implementations. Just on product margins, really what I was referring to is you've got sort of about a month's worth of that lag in Q3. You're gonna see the remainder of it in Q4, and we are expecting, because we use consensus, so consensus has got three rate cuts in the current year. We're expecting a couple of rate cuts in Q4. So you're gonna see impacts in Q4 and actually into Q1 of next year.

[Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas]

Yeah, that's clear. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thank you, Guy. Next question, please.

[Operator]

... The next question comes from Amit Goel from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

[Amit Goel, Managing Director at Mediobanca]

Hi, good morning. Thank you. Two questions from me. One just related to that product margin. But essentially just on the BUK business, I kind of see the balance sheet still contracting a little bit in terms of total loan balances and deposit balances. Versus I guess some of your peers showing a little bit of growth now. Just kind of curious, the interplay between the kind of pricing which goes into that product margin versus balance sheet growth, and you know, when can we start to see a bit more organic growth and capital redeployment into the BUK business, and the second question just relating to the US consumer business.

[Amit Goel, Managing Director at Mediobanca]

I'm just curious how significant or not is the American Airlines partnership, if there's any color you can give there in terms of you know the contribution of that piece to the broader business. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thanks, Amit. I'll take the first of those and then hand to Venkat. So it's probably helpful if we start on the sort of leading indicators page that we've included this time. It's on page 14. If I take you back to February, what we said in February was we didn't expect a significant change in the net balance sheet, particularly in the UK and the current year. That was because of our expectation and the known maturities that we have, not just in mortgages, but for example, in Business Banking. What we did expect was a change in the growth production. What we've shown you on page 14 is what I look at, what we look at, week in, week out, to give ourselves comfort that we are driving that growth production.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So in mortgages, it's relatively straightforward. It's actually our growth lending. You can see that stepping forward quarter on quarter. It's obviously helped by the fact that the mortgage market itself is strong and robust, but also the fact that we are broadening out our range, within that market, and we're really putting Kensington to work now, which we've been unable to do over the last few years. The second point is on card acquisitions, and you can see that meaningful step up in 2024, but we'd already started that journey in 2023, and actually, what you see over time is that those cards volumes will start to feed into interest earning lending.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

And then finally, on US, UK CB, I'm not. I know you're not asking about corporate here, but it's a bit more difficult there, because clearly what you do is you put out lines to clients, which is, you know, shown here in terms of RWAs, and then those clients, in time, will draw down on them. So in terms of what's happening in terms of lead indicators in the balance sheet, I'm happy we're going in the right direction. In BUK specifically, we saw positive net lending in the businesses that we've got in focus. So we saw positive net lending in mortgages. We're seeing it in cards.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

What we've got offsetting that is some runoffs in portfolios, which are obviously no longer core. Core is not the right word, but if I use the example of government lending within Business Banking, I don't think that's different either in percentage terms or sort of in directional terms from our peers. You're hearing similar things there. So I think we're, you know, happy overall. And obviously, as we increase our card lending, you get a mixed impact. As we've increased the proportion of lending at higher loan-to-value, you get a mixed impact, and that's really what's flowing into the product margin and giving that positive. So let me hand to Venkat on the second part.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Yeah, look, Amit, on cards, obviously, we will not talk about any specific account until there is time to talk about, you know, the right time to talk about an account or we have something to say. We also do not talk about individual client profitability or financials. We announced GM a couple of days ago, and so we're speaking about that. And if there's news on any other client, we'll tell you at the right time.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay. Thanks, Amit. Perhaps we can go to the next question.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Chris Hallam, from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Chris Hallam, Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs]

Morning, everybody. So two from me as well. First, in the IB, if we think about the gradual rebalancing of that business, clearly dynamics in the quarter for DCM were very strong, both for you and across the street. But given the organic reduction in RWAs you saw in the quarter in the IB and the improvement in asset productivity, year over year, are you starting to make those selected decisions to deemphasize DCM? And where are you comfortable doing less, I guess? And when we think about reallocating those RWAs into the financing businesses, should we sort of assume GBP 750 million is a floor for markets financing revenues, assuming supported markets? That's the first topic. And then second on Tesco, so thank you for the additional disclosure in the update today.

[Chris Hallam, Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs]

What steps are you planning to take over the next sort of 12 to 24 months to improve the product margins in Tesco Bank? If I look at-

[Chris Hallam, Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs]

... asset productivity or NII versus RWAs, it's quite a bit lower in Tesco Bank than the rest of the UK business, you know, looking at the £400 million and the £7 billion of RWAs. So how are you planning to scale NII faster than RWAs to optimize that capital resourcing question?

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Right. So, Chris, let me take the IB and then Anna will talk about Tesco. On the IB, first of all, big picture, we're looking to keep RWAs in absolute terms, relatively flat to their current number of around 200 billion. The relative reduction in RWAs as a percentage of the group happens because the rest of the group grows. Second, in the Investment Bank, RWAs came down by about 9 billion this quarter compared to the previous one, but about 6 of that was due to FX, and 3 was actual action. And, you know, 1% up and down, or 1.5% up and down in a quarter is normal business mix. Third, we are not looking to de-emphasize DCM.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

What we are looking to do is, within the Investment Bank, be prudent in assigning capital to clients, looking at the totality of their relationship. And that relationship is not just DCM, but it includes M&A and equities and what corporate banking we do with them. And that's the way to think about it, and lending is a part of it. Lending is not the only part of it, and we don't want lending to be the main part of it. And as far as revenue of GBP 750 from financing, look, we've been stable at that number. What I would say is, while we have been gaining clients and gaining market share in that business, the actual revenue is a function of two things.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

It's a function of what happens in the composition of balances, fixed income and equities, and so what the markets do, as well as spreads within that. So I can't tell you that it's going to stay at this level or not go up or down. It depends on that mix. What we do think we have is a diversified business between fixed income and equities, a competitive business in both, but a particularly strong fixed income business, and a diversified business among the types of clients who use it regionally, product-wise, and within fixed income, asset class-wise, meaning spread versus common bonds. So that's what we think contributes to a good and stable mix. But, you know, I'm reluctant to put sort of floors and ceilings on numbers.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thanks, Chris. The only thing I'd add to that is, you know, if I take that GBP 9 billion reduction, GBP 6 billion was FX, as Venkat said, the other GBP 3 billion was just the reversal of the client positioning that we saw over Q2 that we said was temporary. So, it just kind of brings us back to what- to where we started at the beginning of the year. On Tesco, for the next year or so, for the next sort of 12 to 18 months, our focus is really on integration, and our focus will be on customer service. So that is our primary focus, as it would be in any partnership, as it was in Gap in the U.S. So this is just a replication of what we would do with any other partner across the firm.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

You know, over time, we would expect this to be ROTE accretive for a number of reasons, whether that be efficiency, whether that be funding benefits that you might expect to accrue. And obviously, we'll update you on that in sort of, in the course of time. But really, our objective over the short term is going to be to integrate it well and really ensure that that customer experience is foremost.

[Chris Hallam, Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs]

Okay, thanks very much.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thanks, Chris. Perhaps we could go to the next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Alvaro Serrano, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning. Maybe a couple of questions on the Investment Bank for me, please. First of all, on the fee performance, obviously very strong in the quarter, but similar to Q2, where you called out a large deal there, is there any lumpy deals that we should bear in mind? Is the performance sustainable? I'm guessing ultimately I'm asking about the pipeline from here, given the strong performance. Second is on the leveraged finance marks. It feels like it's a bit of an odd quarter to take those marks and with credit spreads actually very tight, so maybe could you give us a bit of color on what's driving that? Is it a portfolio?

[Alvaro Serrano, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Is it a single sort of ticket, or are you looking to sell something and hence the marks, or should we expect more of this in the coming quarters? Just a bit of color on this. Thank you.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Hi, Alvaro. I'll take the first question, and then I'll take the second question. So on fee performance in Q3, nothing special to call out. Look, we are part of certain larger deals, but I wouldn't say that unduly, that there's anything I would call out. And as I've said elsewhere, we've obviously seen activity pick up over this year compared to the previous year. We expect it to continue to be relatively firm. Obviously, there are a couple of wild cards out there in terms of what happens with the U.S. elections and economic policy and reg policy in the U.S. on M&A activity after that. But assuming no major surprises, or changes, we expect to continue to see it to be firm.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

... Okay, thanks, Venkat. So let me pick up that second one, Alvaro. I mean, lease finance is a really important part of our business, and you're right, in the current environment, what we see is that market overall performing really well. Deals are clearing quickly. Occasionally, we find that either some of those don't. That is episodic. It's a feature of our business, it's a feature of the market overall, and not something that we would particularly call out, so it's normal. What we do at the end of every single quarter is we assess our balance sheet, and we use prevailing market information in order to assess the fair value of that balance sheet. And where we feel we need to take marks, then we do.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

That's what we've done in the current quarter. So it's very much BAU, and as I say, it occasionally occurs. It's episodic. I wouldn't comment on clients, as we would never do. I would just remind you also that this is a book which has some hedging set against it. The cost of that hedging also flows through corporate lending, so we protect ourselves in that way. And I would say overall, our exposures are probably, while they're higher than twenty-three, they're lower than they have been historically. So it's a well-risk managed book, and really, this is sort of the kind of thing we see normally, but on an episodic basis.

[Alvaro Serrano, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Thanks, Alvaro. Perhaps we could go to the next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jonathan Pierce from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Hello there. Got two, please. The first is, I'm sorry, it's back on rate sensitivity. Thanks for the hedge allocation data again, by the way. That helps us to be a bit more precise in the tailwinds there in Barclays UK. But the piece that's still struggling with a bit is the rate sensitivity. The 50 million in year one, I hear what you're saying about a lot of that being relating to deposit beta. But if there's GBP 40 billion of hedge maturities a year as per guidance, you'd have thought a 25 basis point shift in the curve would be knocking GBP 50 million out of the hedge income in year one. So, I'm not quite sure what's going on here.

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Are you saying that there is no impact on what we might call managed margin from a 25 basis point rate reduction at all, just simply because the structural hedge is now so large in the context of the deposit book? So it'd be helpful just to understand why that 50 is so low. I mean, it's the lowest in the sector. It's quite difficult to triangulate. The second question... Sorry, this is just for the models, really. Into year-end, there's two bits that I'd like a bit of clarity on. Barclays UK saw, I think, a GBP 4 billion increase in the early parts of the year for methodology and policy changes. At the time, you said that would partially reverse over the rest of the year. It doesn't seem like it has reversed yet. Is that coming in Q4?

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

And then in the other direction, the OR one, I think, is pointing to about a GBP 2.5 billion op risk increase in the fourth quarter. Is that about the right number to be sticking in the spreadsheet? Thanks.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, Jonathan, let me take the first one. So I would say, you know, we said 170 billion over three years, so I think you're probably closer to around 60 billion of hedge maturing. And really, what's going on here is, you know, remember, you've got that underlying maturing rate at around 1.5%. So even though rates are coming down, you're still getting a pickup from the structural hedge. And it's only really in the outer years when that grinds out that you're seeing that more meaningful difference. So I think it's nothing more than that, but we can talk you through that, you know, outside of here, if that's helpful.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

As relates to our relative sensitivity, you know, we talked about this quite a bit as rates went up because we were clearly less rate sensitive on the way up, so you'd expect us to be less sensitive on the way down. So that is exactly what's coming through right now. You know, perhaps we hedge a little bit more. We certainly hedge more proactively. We are looking forward and assessing that on a monthly basis and, you know, adjusting those hedges very, very actively as we go to reflect, you know, the detail of customer and client behavior. So I think it's the benefit of that approach that we're seeing and the fact that we've just done this very programmatically over a very long period of time.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

You know, we're not seeking here to have any kind of view as to where rates will go. We're just letting the hedge roll, and we're reacting to customer behavior. On the second question, I think we'll have to come back to you on that one, on op risk. So let's do that. Venkat, do you want to-

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Yeah, I just-

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Hedging.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

I just want to emphasize the final point Anna made on structural hedging. You know, this is programmatic, this is a hedge. As we try to understand as best we can, deposit behavior, deposit balances, customer behavior affecting that and hedge it. As Anna said, therefore, if it works very well, it should provide you,

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

...with a protection, meaning you don't see the benefits as rates rise as much as you would otherwise. And you see, you don't see the losses as rates fall, meaning that your NII remains more stable because of that. And that's what we are trying to do, and what Anna said is perfectly right about that.

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Yeah, and sorry to just follow up on that. But I mean, I'm fully behind the idea of hedging. That's not the issue. Just to check, though, Anna, that I thought the rate sensitivity table ignored any sort of, you know, yields pick up on the hedge. I thought it was purely if the yield curve's 25 basis points lower, this is the impact on us. In which case, if you're reinvesting 40 billion of hedge a year at 25 basis points less, that's the entirety of, you know, average out over the year, the entirety of the 50 million you're pointing to in year one. Which just implies everything else is nothing. Just checking that's the case.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Yeah, it's just very small in year one, Jonathan. Let us take it outside with you. We'll come back to you.

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Okay.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay.

[Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

All right, thank you. Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Robin Down from HSBC. Please go ahead.

[Robin Down, Former Managing Director at HSBC]

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. And also thank you for the added disclosure on the structural hedge. That's very useful. Apologies, but I'm gonna bring you back to the BUK interest income issue. And it, I think it is important because it's the main topic of conversation among investors this morning. If we look at your GBP 6.5 billion guide for this year, it kind of implies a Q4 run rate ex Tescos of kind of GBP 6.8-6.9 billion. If we add in kind of GBP 400 million for Tescos, we're at kind of 7.2-7.3. I think you're looking to grow next year.

[Robin Down, Former Managing Director at HSBC]

I think, especially given that 85% of the product hedge is in BUK, that the structural hedge benefit is more than going to outweigh any kind of rate reduction impact. So why are you not going to end up materially above the 7.1 that consensus has penciled in next year? Is this, is there something I'm missing, some big kind of negative drag that you're, you're anticipating? Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So, Robin, I'm not gonna comment on consensus income for 2025 at this stage. But I'm just gonna reiterate the fundamentals of what we're talking about here, which is BUK. We expect over the plan to have NII growth of mid-single digit. Tesco is part of that. You can see that there is NII momentum in the business organically. We've called that out. You can see it over the last two quarters. It's coming from asset growth, it's coming from the momentum from the structural hedge. Now, as I said before, we haven't really seen the full impact of the rate cuts yet, but we would still expect the net of all of that into 2025 to be positive, and then obviously, you're going to have Tesco on top of that.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So, I'm not going to give you specific numbers now, but, you know, the view here has not changed from where we were in February, which is we expect NII for BUK to grow.

[Robin Down, Former Managing Director at HSBC]

But as I come back on that, the view kind of has changed in the sense that we've now got a GBP 6.5 billion interest income forecast for BUK for this year. You know, kind of up from well, an original kind of GBP 6.1 billion. So can I put it slightly differently then? Is there any reason why I can't annualize Q4 at kind of GBP 6.9 billion and add GBP 400 million for Tesco's, and so I have a starting base of GBP 7.3 billion when I look at 2025 numbers?

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So, Robin, you're right. We have upgraded our BUK guidance. So we did start at 6.1, and we're now around 6.5. And really, what's happening here is clearly there is a change in our expectation of rates for the current year. You know, we started in a position where we had five rate cuts in February, now we're expecting three. And then the other three, including the one we've already had, so a further two. And then the other thing that's happening here is clearly we've seen a stabilization in that balance sheet earlier than we expected. So at the beginning of the year, I said I expected the balance sheet to get smaller before it got bigger.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

We've seen two quarters now, nearly three quarters of real stabilization in deposits, perhaps a bit earlier than we expected. We've seen, you know, the asset momentum turn perhaps a little bit earlier than we expected. I'm not gonna comment on, you know, your numbers for twenty twenty-five. I'm really gonna leave that to you, but just bring you back to our expectation that we expect NII for BUK to grow.

[Robin Down, Former Managing Director at HSBC]

Right. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thank you. Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Perlie Mong from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Perlie Mong, UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America]

So hi, Anna. Thanks for taking my question. So can I... Sorry, can I bring it back to the hedge? So obviously, the hedge is a very large component of the way you manage the interest rate risk. So with the scale of the hedge, does that mean that your sensitivity to long rates would be higher than-

[Perlie Mong, UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America]

... perhaps other banks or your peers or just all else equal, would you expect more sensitivity to the long rates? Because the reason I'm asking is because there's obviously a lot of discussion around neutral rates in Europe and in the U.K. So I'm just wondering is the reason why your sensitivity is a bit lower on if it's in a parallel shift scenario, is because maybe there's a little bit of difference between a short end and a long end. So that's the first part of the question. And the second part is that it sounds like the notional is more stable than you, than we or might have expected previously. And you previously assumed a reinvestment of 75% of the maturing hedges.

[Perlie Mong, UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America]

I guess the question is: Does it matter whether you reinvest or just simply let it roll off? Because obviously, reinvesting into a higher yield is a positive, but equally, if you run off a 1.5% hedge and then just sort of let it roll on to the variable rate, that is removing a negative and removing a drag. So does that matter whether you're reinvesting or not?

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thanks. Thanks, Perlie. I will take both of those. The first is, you know, the tenor of what we're hedging is between two and seven. So, you know, I wouldn't say we're any more sensitive to the long end of the curve than others. We really try and reflect what we think the varying behavioral lives of the different pockets of deposits that we have. So I wouldn't call that out as a key difference. And then on your second point, just to bring everybody back to this, the 75 and the 170 was indicated to give you some maths that you could then update as we go, rather than a specific forecast from us.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

To the extent that the notional is more stable, I mean, clearly, we have a choice every single quarter or every single month as it rolls. At the moment, you know, you're right, we're getting a pickup from that maturity as it rolls off, even if we just lend it overnight. The difference that the structural hedge gives you is it obviously secures it. So the structural hedge gives you certainty, which is why we do it programmatically, and why we're really focused on how much income are we locking in to 2025 and 2026, which we've shown you again on page 10. So that locked-in number is now GBP 12.4 billion over the three years. So for us, it's really about the certainty and stability of NIR rather than the opportunistic, kind of every month passing.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Just to remind you, that equivalent number was 8.6 in February.

[Perlie Mong, UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay. Thank you, Perlie. I think we are going to our last question in the queue, please. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our final question today comes from Andrew Coombs from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Coombs, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Morning, both. Two questions, one more precise, one broad. On the precise question, just Pillar 2 offset. You talk about the Pillar 2 modest increase, followed by a part offset of the later RWA inflation. It's probably too early, but anything you can provide in terms of quantum, and does that potentially even change your 13%-14% core Tier 1 ratio target? So that's the first question. Second question, much more broad-based question, but budget. Looking into the budget, thinking about both the UK business and the Investment Bank, assuming we don't get a bank tax, is there anything else you're particularly looking at in terms of when you're thinking about future customer activity? Be that CGT and the buy-to-let market, be it employers, national insurance contributions, and the SMEs, et cetera, et cetera. Thank you.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Okay, thank you, Andy. So, really too early to say. What we called out here is that, as you can imagine, in advance of implementing this model, we actually have been holding some Pillar 2A already. There may be some modest increase in that before we implement the model in full. So you know, that's all we're calling out. It's difficult to give any specific guidance around quantum or exact timing, but you'll note that we said modest. And just reiterating, we are already holding Pillar 2A for this. And then the other point I'd make is that obviously we still await some Basel guidance from the PRA.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

So, you know, there is some expectation that we'll get some guidance around Pillar 2 offsets, where they're really trying to avoid double counting between Pillar 1 and Basel and Pillar 2A that exists currently. And really, we need to see all this put together holistically before we give you firmer guidance.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

On the budget, listen, obviously, we're a large UK bank which operates across different sectors of the economy. So whether it's taxation, whether it's borrowing and financing by the government, whether it is private investment and helping with public investment, whether it's individual investment behavior that comes out of whatever the budget says, we would expect to see activity across everything which we do. I can't tell you where and how much and what the net of it is, but expect us to be actively engaged across all the different dimensions of it. With that, thank you, everybody.

[Anna Cross, Group Finance Director at Barclays]

Yes, thank you very much, everybody. I really look forward to seeing some of you on the road, and we will see you at the Sell-side Breakfast in November, but thank you for your continued interest in Barclays. Have a great day. Bye.

[C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO
• Anna Cross, Group Finance Director

Analysts

• Guy Stebbings, Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas
• Jason Napier, Head of European Banks Research at UBS
• Chris Hallam, Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs
• Robin Down, Former Managing Director at HSBC
• Edward Firth, Managing Director at KBW
• Chris Cant, Head of Banks Strategy at Autonomous
• Andrew Coombs, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup
• Amit Goel, Managing Director at Mediobanca
• Jonathan Pierce, Equity Analyst at Jefferies
• Perlie Mong, UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America
• Alvaro Serrano, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Benjamin Toms, Director Equities at RBC