Barclays Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 29, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong Q2 performance: Income rose 14% year-on-year to £7.2 billion, profit before tax increased 28% to £2.5 billion, earnings per share jumped 41% to 11.7p, and cost-income ratio improved to 59%, driving a RoTE of 12.3% and a CET1 ratio of 14%.
  • Positive Sentiment: Shareholder distributions up 21%: Barclays announced a £1 billion buyback (up from £750 million) and a 3p dividend per share, bringing total H1 distributions to £1.4 billion with plans for progressive increases.
  • Positive Sentiment: On track with three-year plan, delivering £200 million in Q2 gross efficiency savings and eighth consecutive quarter of tangible book value growth, aiming for ~11% RoTE in 2025 and >12% in 2026 across all divisions.
  • Positive Sentiment: Barclays UK deployment accelerating, with £17 billion of planned £30 billion RWAs placed to date, supported by four quarters of mortgage growth, strong credit card acquisition and corporate lending momentum, underpinning 2026 targets.
  • Negative Sentiment: U.S. Consumer Bank to absorb a one-off ~£100 million GM portfolio day-one impairment in Q3 and ~£50 million quarterly migration charges thereafter, partially offsetting improved net interest margin and rising retail deposit levels.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Barclays Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Welcome to Barclays Half-Year 2025 Results Analyst and Investor Conference Call. 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
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Barclays' Second Quarter 2025 Results Call. I am very pleased to announce very strong results for this quarter. Income grew by 14% year-on-year to GBP 7.2 billion. Profit before taxes grew by 28% to GBP 2.5 billion, and earnings per share grew by 41% to GBP 11.70. Return on tangible equity was 13.2% in the 1st half of the year and 12.3% in the quarter. This compares to 11.1% in the 1st half of 2024 and 9.9% in the 2nd quarter of last year. Cost-to-income ratio at 59% in the 2nd quarter is a 4.0 percentage point improvement versus last year. This performance drove an 8th consecutive quarter of growth in tangible book value per share, now to GBP 384. It has driven strong capital generation with a CET1 ratio of 14%.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

As a result, we are announcing a GBP 1 billion buyback today, up from GBP 750 million in the 1st half of 2024, and we expect to initiate this in the coming days. We are also announcing a dividend per share of GBP 0.03. This total of GBP 1.4 billion of shareholder distributions for the 1st half of 2025 is up 21% year-on-year. We expect our distributions to continue to build progressively, supported by increasing capital generation. These strong results mark the midpoint of our three-year plan to deliver a better run, more highly performing, and higher-returning Barclays. I am very pleased with the Group's operational and financial progress so far. We remain committed to and confident in achieving the full objectives of this plan, and this includes a return on tangible equity of circa 11% in 2025 and more than 12% in 2026.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

By design, our plan is delivering operational improvements across each of our divisions to drive structurally higher and more consistent group returns in 2026 and beyond. In the 2nd quarter, we achieved a further GBP 200 million of gross efficiency savings, or GBP 350 million for the 1st half of 2025. This is good progress against our target of circa GBP 500 million for the year. All of our divisions generated a double-digit ROTE in the 2nd quarter. This includes a 2.6 percentage point year-on-year improvement in the investment bank's ROTE to 12.2% and a 1% improvement in the U.S. Consumer Bank ROTE to 10.2%. Before handing over to Anna to take you through the results in more detail, let me share a few reflections on our progress at the midpoint of our plan. I am very pleased with what we have achieved so far.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Our three-year plan set out in February 2024 outlined a roadmap to produce higher and more balanced returns. We have seen the value of clearly articulating our targets and capital framework, the value of providing transparency for shareholders, and the value of driving accountability and disciplined execution internally. I would stress that our 2026 targets were never intended to be a resting place, and nor do they represent the extent of our ambition for ROTE capital distributions, nor the proportion of group capital allocated to the investment bank. We are executing against our plan, as we said we would, resulting in higher shareholder returns. The momentum which we are seeing across the Group positions us well to deliver our ROTE guidance and targets by continuing to drive income growth, by increasing operating leverage, and with our business mix changes.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Since 2023, we have deployed GBP 17 billion of business growth risk-weighted assets into our U.K.-based focus businesses: Barclays UK, the U.K. Corporate Bank, and Private Bank Investment Management. This includes GBP 10 billion from organic growth. This organic progress and the acquisition of Tesco Bank mean that we have now deployed more than half of the planned GBP 30 billion by 2026. Within the investment bank, we have intentionally kept RWAs stable for three and a half years. This is driving efficiency and productivity, and to ensure that the division is a consistent source of capital generation for the Group. I am very pleased with the performance halfway through the plan, with annualized income growth of 9% since 2023, in line with the division's high single-digit growth target. I think about the investment bank's performance through two lenses: structural and cyclical.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Structural improvements in the business are driving broader and deeper client relationships, and they are supporting income in a range of environments. A good example of this progress is in our markets franchise, where we now rank top five with 60 of the top 100 clients in the business. This is well on our way to our target of 70 by 2026, up from 49 in 2023. By strengthening our institutional client franchise, we have increased market share in our three focus businesses by more than one percentage point during 2024, with good momentum since then. In financing. Good momentum of client onboarding and balanced growth contributed to a 23% year-on-year increase in income in U.S. dollar terms in the second quarter, with particular strength in prime. Stable income streams now account for 40% of the investment bank's income in the past year, up from 29% in 2021.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

From this structurally stronger base, the investment bank is also better positioned to monetize cyclical market activity by helping clients to manage volatility, as we demonstrated in the early part of the 2nd quarter of this year. This cyclical activity is included in traditional areas of strength for us, such as credit and macro, and also in new areas of strength, such as equity derivatives and prime. Our work is not finished. With the ongoing execution of our plan, we will continue to produce structurally higher and more consistent returns for our shareholders. With that, over to Anna to take us through the 2nd quarter.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you, Venkat, and good morning, everyone. Slide five summarizes the financial highlights for the 2nd quarter and 1st half of 2025. Before going into the detail, I would remind you how our results are affected by FX rates. The year-on-year performance in Q2 was impacted by a weaker U.S. dollar, which decreased our reported income, costs, and impairments. I'll call out these effects where appropriate. The Group delivered a Q2 ROTE of 12.3% against the previous year's 9.9%. Excluding the effect of last year's business disposal losses, income rose 9% with growth across all divisions, while our efficiency actions led to another quarter of positive jaws of 4%. Profit before tax increased by 28% year-on-year to GBP 2.5 billion, and our earnings per share grew 41%, supported by the effect of share buybacks.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

As ever, I am focused on four aspects of performance: income stability with an emphasis on growth, cost discipline and progress on efficiency savings, credit performance, and a robust capital position. By focusing on these four building blocks, we are now driving higher returns on a sustainable, predictable, and consistent basis. From this strong foundation, I am now looking for signs of increasing momentum across our businesses, which I'll call out as we go, starting on slide seven. Income in Q2 increased 14% year-on-year to GBP 7.2 billion. We grew stable income streams by 13% year-on-year, supported by sustained retail and corporate NII growth and 15% growth of financing income within markets. Elsewhere in the investment bank, our multi-year investment meant we were well positioned to help clients navigate volatility in April and throughout the quarter. Group net interest income increased 12% year-on-year in Q2 to GBP 3.1 billion.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Stable deposits for the Group supported continued reinvestment of the structural hedge alongside lending momentum. Within this, we have consistently taken market share in U.K. corporate bank deposits and lending since 2023 and year to date. In Barclays U.K., we maintained our share in current accounts and chose to remain disciplined on term deposit pricing in the quarter amid strong competition. The overall stability of deposits will support growth of the structural hedge income, as we show on slide nine. Income from the structural hedge is material and predictable and underpins our confidence in delivering NII guidance for the Group and Barclays UK in 2025. Beyond 2026, we currently expect the structural hedge to deliver multi-year NII growth. We have now locked in GBP 11.1 billion of gross structural hedge income in 2025 and 2026, up from GBP 10.2 billion last quarter.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

As we said in April, our plan assumes that we reinvest 90% of maturing hedges at a 3.5% yield. In each case, the Q2 outcome was more favorable than these assumptions. On rates, we locked in hedges at a higher rate at circa 3.7%. We kept hedge balances flat, as you can see on slide 35 in the appendix, reflecting the continued stability of hedgeable deposits. Moving on to costs. The Group cost-to-income ratio was 59% in Q2, down four percentage points year-on-year. Total costs increased by GBP 219 million year-on-year, or 5%, which includes a circa GBP 100 million increase in investment costs, mainly from the acquisition of Tesco Bank and associated integration costs. The effects of business growth, inflation, and other investments on the cost base were largely offset by gross efficiency savings.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Structural cost actions in the 1st half were around GBP 100 million, down slightly versus H1 2024. Looking ahead, we expect structural cost actions to be skewed towards the 2nd half of the year and to be towards the top of the GBP 200-GBP 300 million normal annual range. Inclusive of these costs, we remain well positioned to deliver a circa 61% cost-income ratio in 2025, in line with guidance and the high 50s target in 2026. Turning now to impairment. The Q2 Group impairment charge of GBP 469 million equated to a loan loss rate of 44 basis points. The U.K. credit picture remained benign, with low and stable delinquencies in our consumer books and wholesale loan loss rates below our through-the-cycle expectations. The Barclays UK charge was GBP 79 million in Q2, resulting in a loan loss rate of 14 basis points.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

The improvement versus Q1 reflected a release of credit card provisions and diminishing post-acquisition stage migration effects for Tesco Bank balances. The U.S. Consumer Bank impairment charge of $312 million was stable year-on-year and down 22% versus last quarter. The acquisition of General Motors' card balances is expected to lead to a circa $100 million day one charge in Q3 and a post-acquisition stage migration charge of circa $50 million for the next few quarters from Q4. Including this charge, we continue to expect a Group loan loss rate within the through-the-cycle guidance of 50-60 basis points for full year 2025. Focusing on the U.S. Consumer Bank, 90-day delinquencies were stable in the quarter, while 30-day delinquencies fell 20 basis points to 2.8%, consistent with normal seasonal trends. The loan loss rate of 456 basis points increased by 18 basis points year-on-year, reflecting modestly higher write-offs.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Consumer behavior remains resilient, with payment rates in our book above pre-COVID levels and consistent with Q1, and a stable mix of new account acquisitions, as can be seen on slide 39 in the appendix. I said I would highlight signs of increasing momentum, which we are seeing. Turning to our U.K. businesses on slide 13. We are on track to deploy GBP 30 billion of business growth RWAs in the U.K. by 2026, having achieved GBP 17 billion so far, including GBP 10 billion organically. During 2024, the three U.K. businesses delivered circa GBP 1.5 billion of organic business RWA growth per quarter on average. This has accelerated to circa GBP 2 billion per quarter in half one 2025. Given the momentum that you can see on the slide, we expect this growth to continue.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Mortgage balances have grown for the past four quarters, and strong purchase activity continues to support resilient demand. This includes stronger demand for higher LTV products, including through Kensington, where application margins are around four times higher than comparable Barclays-branded mainstream mortgages. In credit cards, the organic acquisition of 1.6 million customers in the past 18 months has supported consistent balance growth. We expect this to lead to higher interest-earning lending from half two 2025 as promotional balances mature. Core business banking lending has started to inflect, with a headwind from COVID-era loan repayments diminishing. This growth has been supported by GBP 1.6 billion of loans provided to U.K. business banking customers in half one, up 50% year-on-year. U.K. corporate bank lending has grown for the past three quarters as clients continue to draw down lending facilities.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Given momentum across these products, we remain confident in achieving the GBP 30 billion target in 2026. This implies a little over GBP 2 billion of growth per quarter, modestly above the recent run rate. Turning now to Barclays UK in more detail. You can see financial highlights on slide 14, but I will talk to slide 15. ROTE was 19.7% in the quarter, NII of GBP 1.9 billion increased 16% year-on-year and 2% quarter on quarter, with NIM stable versus Q1. We remain confident in our guidance for NII to exceed GBP 7.6 billion in 2025, which in turn means more than GBP 3.9 billion in the 2nd half of the year. Reinvestment of the structural hedge will continue to support material and predictable NII growth alongside sustained lending momentum. In addition, we expect a neutral or positive contribution from the product margin in Q3 and Q4.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

This partly reflects the benefit of promotional card balances translating into higher interest-earning lending in half two. In addition, as an accounting matter, the phasing of some historic swap maturities suppressed product margin in half one. This was known when we upgraded our guidance for NII last quarter and will not repeat in future as these swaps expire. We would therefore encourage you to look at H2 2025 as a reasonable baseline for NII dynamics beyond 2025, noting that NII is expected to build in Q3 and Q4. Non-NII of GBP 264 million rose modestly versus Q1, and we continue to expect a quarterly run rate above GBP 250 million. Cost growth of 14% reflected the acquisition and subsequent ongoing integration of Tesco Bank. As a reminder, we expect the cost-income ratio for Barclays UK to increase this year from 52% in 2024 before falling to circa 50% in 2026.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Moving on to the Barclays UK balance sheet. Deposit balances fell by GBP 1.8 billion in the quarter as customers took advantage of favorable term deposit rates around the new ISA season. We were disciplined around pricing for term deposits, which was competitive in the 1st half of the quarter. This dynamic moderated later in the quarter, and our market share in current accounts has remained stable. Lending once again grew by GBP 1.6 billion quarter on quarter, driven by mortgages and credit cards. Mortgage redemptions will increase in half two versus H1, but our recent retention experience and the momentum that we are seeing underpin our confidence in sustained loan growth. Moving on to U.K. corporate bank on slide 18. Q2 ROTE was 16.6%, inclusive of a GBP 39 million litigation and conduct charge.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

This charge was in relation to a historic issue and drove a 19% year-on-year increase in costs in this business. Excluding this, costs increased by 2%, while income grew 17%. NII was up 21% year-on-year, reflecting deposit and lending growth and the benefits from structural hedge reinvestment. Operationally, investments into our digital and lending propositions have helped to attract around 330 new clients during H1 2025 and circa 880 new clients in the 1st half of the three-year plan. Turning now to Private Bank and Wealth Management. Q2 ROTE was 31.9%. Net new assets under management of GBP 0.9 billion helped support 8% year-on-year growth in client assets and liabilities despite a weaker U.S. dollar. An annualized growth of 11% since 2023 is in line with our double-digit growth target. Within the quarter, growth of assets under supervision offset a reduction in short-term deposits held at the end of Q1.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Income growth of 9% matched cost growth of 9%, resulting in a broadly stable cost-to-income ratio. As previously guided, we are continuing to invest in this business, underpinning sustained growth and a high 60s cost-to-income ratio in 2026. Turning now to the Investment Bank. ROTE was 12.2% in Q2 and 14.2% in half one. Total income was up 10% year-on-year, which, coupled with broadly stable RWAs now for three and a half years, drove an 80 basis point improvement in income over average RWAs to 6.7%. We continue to be similarly disciplined on costs, which rose 2%, resulting in another quarter of positive jaws and a cost-to-income ratio of 59%. Using the U.S. dollar figures to help comparisons to U.S. peers, market income was up 34% year-on-year.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

As Venkat mentioned, the growing breadth and depth of our client relationships are supporting structurally higher income while better positioning the Investment Bank to monetize cyclical activity. Our performance in Q2 helps to demonstrate this. In April, for instance, we monetized cyclical market activity by supporting clients through the period of volatility. Whilst in May and June, structural improvements in the business enabled a higher daily income run rate in markets versus last year, despite more normalized volatility. This was supported by momentum of more stable financing income, which grew 23% year-on-year in U.S. dollar terms. This occurred across financing products, with particular strength in prime, supported by growth in balances and wider spreads. We also delivered this performance whilst managing risk well, maintaining stable VaR and incurring two trading book loss days, one in April and one in May, in line with the average since 2019.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Looking at our income by product, FICC rose 35%, reflecting growth across the credit and macro franchises and in financing. The mix of our macro business weighted towards rate and FX was well suited to activity in the quarter. Equities income was up 34%, driven by strength in cash, prime, and equity derivatives. In banking, the environment was quiet in April but improved in May and June, and our half one market share was stable at 3.4%. Banking income fell 10% in the quarter, reflecting the year-on-year effect of a large ECM transaction in Q2 2024. Looking through this effect, ECM activity gained momentum towards the end of Q2, with Barclays acting as book runner on seven of the top 12 U.S. IPOs in the quarter.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

In DCM, we grew market share in all products, and activity picked up as the quarter progressed, particularly in investment grade, and the pipeline for leverage finance is encouraging. Whilst advisory activity has been subdued, our announced volumes are up nearly 40% year-on-year, which we expect to support stronger completed market share in the future. In transaction banking, income increased 4%, whilst corporate lending income was impacted by fair value losses on lending positions. Turning now to the U.S. consumer bank. ROTA was 10.2% in the quarter, up from 9.2% in Q2 2024. The business performed as we expected it to in the quarter, with operational improvements supporting our confidence in delivering a ROTA of greater than 12% in 2026. Total income increased 7% year-on-year in U.S. dollar terms, reflecting end net receivables growth of 5% to $33.9 billion on a managed basis.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

NIM expanded to 10.8%, and we expect continued momentum towards our greater than 12% target in 2026, reflecting three effects. 1st, asset repricing actions taken last year are supporting margins and will continue to feed through in the coming quarters. 2nd, we are growing higher margin retail balances as a percentage of net receivables from around 15% currently to circa 20% by 2026. 3rd, we are improving our funding mix, with retail deposits growing by $0.7 billion quarter-on-quarter, or 27% year-on-year, increasing the share of funding from core deposits to 73%. The acquisition of General Motors' cards receivables is also expected to enhance ROTA from Q4 2025, despite the $50 million stage migration charge in the quarter that I mentioned earlier.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We continue to complement income growth with efficiency, driving a 2 percentage point improvement in the cost-to-income ratio to 48%, on track for our mid-40s target by 2026. Moving to capital. We ended the quarter in the upper half of the 13%-14% target range, with a CET1 ratio of 14%. This is a deliberate consequence of the strategy, which was designed to drive higher and more consistent returns, improved capital generation, and higher shareholder distributions. We generated around 100 basis points of capital from attributable profits in H1 and expect around 170 basis points this year, aligned to our circa 11% ROTE target. This enabled us to increase distributions by 21% year-on-year in half one to $1.4 billion, in line with our guidance to deliver a progressive increase in total distributions in 2025 versus 2024.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

This included an announced $1 billion share buyback, which will reduce the reported ratio by circa 30 basis points to 13.7%. RWAs were broadly flat at $353 billion, net of a $5.8 billion reduction due to FX. Barclays UK and the U.K. corporate bank saw a combined RWA increase of $2.2 billion. Given our continued discipline, investment bank RWAs remained broadly in line with the Q1 level and represented 56% of the overall group RWAs. Looking ahead, we note that some European banks have recently provided detail on the effect of output floors, which for Barclays are not expected to be binding at any point. This reflects our business mix and applies at both the group and the ring fence level. As usual, a word on our overall liquidity and funding on slide 28.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We have strong and diverse funding, including a 74% loan-to-deposit ratio and a net stable funding ratio of 136%. We are highly liquid across currencies, with an average LCR of 178%, incorporating the initial effect of methodology changes introduced in June. Although these changes will utilize some of the group's $135 billion surplus funding position, we expect the LCR to remain broadly within levels reported in recent years. These measures reflect purposeful and prudent management of our balance sheet and risk, delivering resilience and capacity to support customers in a range of economic environments. TNAV per share increased GBP 0.12 in the quarter and GBP 0.44 year-on-year to GBP 3.84. Attributable profit added GBP 0.1 per share during Q2, and the unwind of the cash flow hedge reserve added GBP 0.09. We expect the majority of the remaining cash flow hedge reserve to unwind by the end of 2026.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

This unwind, combined with earnings growth and buybacks, gives us confidence that TNAV will continue to grow consistently, as it has done for the last eight quarters. To summarize, we are pleased with the strong performance of the bank in the 1st half of the year, which sets us up well to deliver on all our 2025 guidance and 2026 targets. Over to you, Venkat, for concluding remarks.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Thank you, Anna. Halfway into the three-year plan, as you can see, we remain firmly on track to deliver our goals. We are working hard to deliver sustainable operational and financial improvements across our businesses, and this, in turn, will drive higher group returns and shareholder distributions. As we have said, 2026 is a point in time for us, and we have ambition beyond it.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

By making structural improvements, we are improving the profit signature of the bank to drive higher returns in the years to follow. I will now open for questions and answers.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star followed by two. Our first question today comes from the line of Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Alvaro Serrano
Alvaro Serrano
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Hi, good morning. A couple of questions, please. 1st of all, on capital and then one on the investment bank. On capital, you are at 13.7. Obviously after the buyback. That is a pretty comfortable position given your 13-14. FRTB has been delayed.

Alvaro Serrano
Alvaro Serrano
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

When you think about your capital position versus the over $10 billion distribution, and obviously M&A options that you have appeared on the press contemplating, how do you see upside to distribution versus additional firepower for M&A, whether that is a portfolio in the U.S. or something else? If you can maybe sort of walk us through your thinking. 2nd, on the investment bank, obviously trading, you have explained, Anna, very strong, clearly doing better than U.S. peers. That has worked very well, but investment banking fees not so well.

Alvaro Serrano
Alvaro Serrano
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

In a world where we seem to be heading, famous last words, to a low volatility environment, I know you have touched on it at the end of the quarter, but I am just sort of, if you can elaborate, if that low volatility banking fees picking up thesis has held at the later part of the quarter, and as we look in the rest of the year, can we still expect decent growth in a low volatility environment, i.e., banking fees making up for whatever sort of normalization of global markets we might see? Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay, good morning, Alvaro. Thank you very much for kicking off the call for us. I'll take the 1st question, and then I'm going to hand to Venkat. Look, our capital position just reflects the execution of the strategy.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

The strategy is designed to create higher and more consistent returns, which in turn allows us to return more to shareholders and indeed invest in the business. That's really what you're seeing here. It's exactly what we expected. As you call out, 13.7% post the buyback, we indicated at the beginning of the year that actually we expected to operate towards the upper half of our capital range just because of the pillar two that we're carrying in advance of the U.S. model being implemented. We're exactly where we expected to be. The broader aspects of your question, I would say, the capital hierarchy remains completely intact. We're generating higher levels of capital from more consistent and higher returns. Our priorities are, number one, of course, regulatory. Number two, distributions. Those distributions are up 21% year-on-year. The buyback is up 33% year-on-year.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We said that the distributions should be progressive in 2025. That's what you're seeing. Of course, our guidance and target for the three years is at least 10. That all remains intact. Finally, continuing to invest in the U.K. businesses, we do believe our plan is an organic one. You can see at the halfway point, we put down $17 billion of the $30 billion RWAs that we are planning to. That's how we feel about capital. Really no change, just the execution of the strategy. Venkat?

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Yeah. Hey, thanks for the question, Alvaro. On the investment bank, let me give you a longer-term view, and then I'll come to your very specific question. On the investment bank, over the last six quarters, in fact, since before then, we've been obviously investing in our structural capabilities.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

What you see in the results in the investment bank is a combination of deep structural improvements, which we think are sustainable over the long run, and then cyclical aspects, which benefited the trading business and may have been a headwind for the banking business. I'll come to that. On the structural side, basically, you're seeing deeper client engagement. One of the statistics we put out was we're number six investment bank. Of our top 100 clients, who are we in the top five with? That number was 49 before the plan started. Our target is 70. We're at 60 now. You can see it in the market shares which we have in global markets. Financing is up 23% year-on-year in U.S. dollars. Our three focus areas are up by one percentage point, 24 versus 23, and that's the latest data we have. I mentioned the top five clients.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

When you look at the overall, and when you look at banking, capital discipline has really taken root. Return on risk-weighted assets is improving. Market share has improved, although a little slower this year. That is the structural benefit that we see. You can see it in the results. When you look at the investment bank's performance versus consensus, the six quarters now, we've beaten consensus. The size of that beat has been growing to about GBP 300 million this quarter. I think what you're seeing is the combination there of both structural and cyclical. Let me come to cyclical. Cyclical in the markets business has been helped, obviously, by volatility. That's been a tailwind. In banking, as you point out, as decision-making has slowed, that volatility has been a bit of a headwind.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Now, looking forward, we are seeing that headwind in banking dissipating as there is more deal activity. We expect that to continue. As for markets, I think a lot of the positioning that's taken place in the last six months has been in reaction to immediate volatility. What I would call shorter-term risk management. That has obviously delayed longer-term decision-making, which drives banking. Now, though, in the market side, you could see more longer-term positioning and decision-making as people take a clearer view on different asset classes and within asset classes rotation. I hope and expect, given all the structural improvements I outlined, that we will benefit from that.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you, Alvaro. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please, operator.

Operator

The next question comes from Guy Stebbings from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Guy Stebbings
Guy Stebbings
Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas

Hi, morning, there. Two questions, if I may.

Guy Stebbings
Guy Stebbings
Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas

The 1st one was on Barclays UK. I was wondering if you could expand on this historic swap maturity impact that landed in H1 that comes out in H2 and should support expansion of the product margin in the 2nd half. I don't know if you can sort of frame the size of that, perhaps. And then attached to that. Looking at your four-year guide and talk to quarter-on-quarter growth, it looks like we're getting to a sort of exit quarterly run rate of about $8 billion or so on the NII for Barclays UK. Consensus is at $8.3 billion for next year. It does not feel overly challenging versus that sort of exit rate. Can we infer that you're comfortable with market expectations next year, perhaps even some upside despite the miss in the 2nd quarter? The 2nd question was on the U.S. consumer business.

Guy Stebbings
Guy Stebbings
Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas

On the impairment side, encouraging to see that step down impairments in Q2 and the lower 30-day delinquencies. Perhaps I can invite you to comment on how you're thinking about impairments in the 2nd half and beyond on that book. I mean, there had been some skepticism that the 2026 impairment guide could be challenging to get to that sort of 400 basis points long run. Are you sort of more confident on delivery there today than perhaps three, four months ago? Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay, thanks, Guy. Why do not I take both of those? I am sure Venkat may add on the second. Let me start with BUK NII in totality. We are confident in the greater than $7.6 billion. When we gave you that guidance, we were clearly aware of the swap matter that you're talking about here. The phasing is panning out as we expected it to.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Therefore, that means by definition, we're expecting income to be in excess of $3.9 billion in the 2nd half of the year. Within that, I would just add for Q4 to be higher than Q3. I will come back to the 2nd part of your question in a minute. What really drives that? There are clearly the things we talked about, which is the structural hedge, loan growth. You can see the momentum in BUK. The other thing I would just call out as a product margin matter, Guy, is not just this swap effect, but it is also the fact we expect to see maturing cards balances, maturing promotional cards balances in the 2nd half of the year. Obviously, we expect to see deposit trends to continue to mitigate. This swap point, it is a historic matter, and it is an accounting point, and it is accounting timing.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

It basically relates to the maturity profile of historic swaps versus how we recognize swaps against products internally. It is purely timing. To try and put some quantum around it, what I would say is it is probably most of the consensus miss in Q2, and it was relatively similar across Q1 and Q2. So, it's a half-one versus half-two point. It's now behind us. It's not operational, purely accounting timing. And from 2022 onwards, we're now booking our swaps in a different way. So, I'm not expecting this will recur. In terms of the jumping-off point, as I said in my prepared remarks, please use half-two as a jumping-off point for NII next year. Within that note, the Q3, Q4 momentum. It's a bit too early to talk about explicit numbers or consensus for next year.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Just please note from this, I guess our confidence in terms of that building NII momentum, not just in meeting 2025 guidance, but underpinning ROTE in 2026 and having momentum even beyond that point. Let me now come to U.S. consumer impairment. Look, it's fallen Q on Q as we would have expected it to seasonally. You can see that 30-day delinquencies are down 20 basis points. It's performing well. Interestingly, within that, the lowest three FICO bands are also down year-on-year in delinquency, which I see as encouraging. What we expect in the 2nd half is obviously normal seasonal trends. You tend to see a build towards the back end of the year just as holiday spending picks up. The only other notable thing I would call out is obviously in Q3, we onboard the General Motors backbook.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

You should expect to see a GBP 100 day one charge then. Then you're going to see some migration effects, probably about GBP 50 per quarter for a few quarters just because we onboard things at stage one. Overall, I think within the context of the group guidance of 50-60 basis points, we're very comfortable. Venkat, anything?

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Yeah, look, I'll just add at a broader macroeconomic level, it has been remarkable, really, quite how resilient the U.S. economy has been. Indeed the U.K. economy to everything that's going on in tariffs. Obviously, there is inflationary pressure, but employment remains very strong. I mean, the Fed is having a meeting tomorrow, but it's not cut once so far this year. I think we have to see how that plays out.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

I would say at a macroeconomic level, there is room for hope in the strength of the economy, especially as the frequency of tariff announcements and the amplitude of tariff changes reduce. Both frequency and amplitude reduce.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

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

Operator

The next question today comes from the line of Jason Napier from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Jason Napier
Jason Napier
Head of European Banks Research at UBS

Good morning, Venkat. And thanks for taking my questions. Two, please. The first, just focusing on the retained targets for 2026. I guess at the halfway point for the strategic plan. The bank's doing better than expected, right? As Venkat, you mentioned, you've beaten in the IB six quarters in a row. And consensus is pretty close to your $30 billion revenue target for next year. The market is well over a billion below your expectations for the investment bank.

Jason Napier
Jason Napier
Head of European Banks Research at UBS

I wanted to invite you to sort of give us your thinking on that $30 billion guide. Is it still that number because you're not in the habit of refreshing it every quarter? Is it that the cyclical tailwinds in the IB that you've enjoyed so far, you think, are a bit of a headwind from here? Because if we put in your IB number, if we add that to consensus, you're a 13% ROTE company, not the sort of more than 12% at which we seem to be a little bit stuck. Secondly, perhaps just as a follow-on. Consensus beyond 2026 has got the bank growing revenues by 3% and costs by 2%. I wonder whether, just at a footprint level, you think that makes sense. Are the markets in which you're playing growing that little in the next few years? Thanks very much.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay, thanks. Thanks, Jason.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

I'm going to start and then hand to Venkat. We've retained and indeed repeated our targets for 2025 and for 2026. When we step back, we're clearly on a strong platform here. At the end of the 1st half of this year, we're sitting on a 13% ROTE. We clearly got momentum across all five of the businesses. This is what the strategy is about. We're not surprised by these results. Our objective was to drive income momentum and income stability whilst holding costs and capital discipline. That's exactly what we're doing here. You can see that in the results. Clearly, what it does is it gives us, obviously, confidence for the current year. Even more than that, it gives us confidence for 2026 and beyond as a ROTE matter.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Income-wise, that being the specific part of your question, what you're seeing here is clear NII momentum, as I covered in the previous conversation. Loan growth will underpin that. You're going to see the maturation of cards balances that will underpin that. You can see the structural hedge underpinning that. Elsewhere in the bank, you can see the progress that we are making structurally in the IB, both as a revenue matter and in terms of a ROTE matter. So, we believe that with each passing quarter, clearly, we're more confident, and hopefully, the market becomes so in that delivery. Sort of beyond 2025 and 2026. Hopefully, you're starting to see a pattern here. The strategy is not hard. As I said, it's about driving income momentum and stability, keeping costs controlled, and being really disciplined about where we allocate our capital.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We're not going to suddenly stop doing that at the end of 2026. From our perspective, we expect to continue to drive that level of momentum. Venkat, you may want to add specifically.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Yeah. Look, Jason, you've asked a question or two questions which really hit at the heart of what our strategy and our strategic plan is. One is. What is the how well are the businesses performing, and how are you getting that better performance? As Anna just said, there's an important part that is structural. We're just trying to run the place much better. And with deeper client engagement, greater efficiency in cost, greater. Revenue growth, strong risk controls. We're very happy with the numbers we've seen over the first six quarters. We think the structural underpinnings, as Anna said, give us expectations to carry that forward, not just into the next six quarters, but beyond that.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

One part is running the bank better. The 2nd part comes to the footprint, as you put it, which is what are the businesses and where are they? Now, a large at-scale bank like us should grow. At top line, roughly at the nominal rate of the economies in which we are. Both in the U.K. and in the U.S., that nominal rate, the U.S. is running a 1% GDP growth real Q4 2025 to 2024. It's probably going to be 2% next year. With inflation at around 4-ish %, call it a 5%, 4.5-5% nominal growth, similar in the U.K. You would expect us. Absent of capturing market share, to grow at roughly that level is what I would think in the long run a good bank should do. That's not a target. That's not a forecast.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

It's just saying to you that when you think about how our footprint is, right, that's a reasonable assumption to start with.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thank you, Jason. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please, operator.

Operator

The next question today comes from the line of Rob Noble from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Rob Noble
Rob Noble
Banks Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Hi. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Can I just ask on the. Promotional cards? Aren't they booked at effective interest rates? Why would you get a pickup in H2 from there? If you could just elaborate on the size of the balances on promotional, how much is rolling, what the EIR rate is. Secondly, I think there's been sort of one quarter's growth in the last eight in the U.K. deposit book. I presume a couple of years ago, that wasn't the plan. What's not working there?

Rob Noble
Rob Noble
Banks Analyst at Deutsche Bank

What could be improved to turn the deposit to give you the confidence for it to be stable going forward? Lastly, how big is the Kensington book now? What's it growing at? Who are you taking share from in that business?

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thanks, Rob. I will take those. I'm not going to go into the details of EIR assumptions. What I would say is that when we do reflect effective interest rates across our cards books, we do so conservatively as we do across all of our businesses. Typically, what we're doing there is we're spreading the upfront fee, but we're also reflecting a bit of post-promotional balances. Actually, what we're seeing is the 2024 cohort maturing nicely. That's really what we're calling out here. In terms of U.K. deposits, we're broadly following the trends of our peers. Current accounts market share is being maintained.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

You can see that we are not encountering anything unexpected simply because we're rolling 100% of the hedge. Our planning assumption is 90%. We rolled 100% of it in the 2nd quarter. That tells you that things are broadly panning out. We continue to see some deposit migration, but that is the ISA season aside. That continues to just normalize. Nothing unexpected here. On Kensington, we're seeing now high loan-to-value mortgages occupy about 25% of our flow. That's up from around 15% a couple of years back. I won't call out Kensington balances specifically, but they are being very, very helpful in helping us address the full scale, the full breadth of the mortgage market, which is why we are now taking gross share a little ahead of stock. Retention is very good. Of course, what's notable about Kensington is the margins are much richer.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

On equivalent products, they're about four times the scale of a normal BUK mortgage margin. We're really pleased with its performance. It's fully integrated now into the business.

Rob Noble
Rob Noble
Banks Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thank you. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Chris Kent from Autonomous. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Chris Kent
Chris Kent
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Autonomous

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I had a couple on regulation, please. Firstly, thinking about what's happening in the U.S. If we get these SLR changes and your U.S. competitors have effectively significantly more leverage balance sheet capacity handed to them and they seek to deploy that in markets, how should we think about the effect of that on the IB growth you've seen over the last five, six years, particularly around financing? Do you see that as a competitive threat?

Chris Kent
Chris Kent
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Autonomous

What can you do about it if those peers now have more capacity to muscle in? With regards to CCAR and the U.S. consumer business, the reasoning you've given for retaining that business in the past is partly because it helps your CCAR performance. Obviously, CCAR is getting more benign. Do you now feel less compelled to retain that business? What is the argument for keeping that? On the U.K. side of the fence, if I could just invite you to comment on what, if any, outcomes we might expect from the current U.K. capital framework review that's happening in the background. Are you expecting that to be a positive? Venkat, I know you've expressed some views contrary to your peers at other banks around the ring-fencing regime. What are your updated thoughts given the changes we may see there? Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thanks, Chris.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

I will start on the 1st two of those, and then I'll hand to Venkat for the third point on the U.K. capital framework. Look, on SLR, we note peer comments. We're confident in our ability to continue to grow our prime business and indeed our fixed income financing business. We're seeing that continue. Good balance growth, good spreads, and actually expanding a bit into Asia, which is relatively new for us. Very much open for business and confident in our ability to grow. What's underpinning that is a couple of things. Firstly, as we look at our U.S. peers, it looks like the leverage is not binding for all right now. This may or may not make a significant amount of difference. Secondly, we look forward to what the FPC might do in the U.K. as it looks at the framework more holistically, as you point out.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

No specific concerns. On CCAR, Barclays in the U.S. typically has a good CCAR result. Has exactly the same this year, a low point of 10.8%, a drawn stress buffer of 3.3%. We still see that diversified banks across that CCAR stack get a better result. That is very, very clear. There were some aspects of this year's CCAR stress test where the market shock component was a little lower than we might have previously seen. We can't always anticipate that that will be the case. Important that we don't react to one stress test in isolation. Just stepping back, this is a business that we believe we can improve the returns on. You can see that. We believe we can get the returns not just to be in line with the group, but more towards mid-teens.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

It offers income and geographic diversification as well as the particular capital efficiency point. That's how we feel about cards. Venkat, do you want to?

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Yeah. Moving to the U.K., 1st of all, I welcome the broader capital framework review that was announced recently. I think I welcome it in two ways. One is it's an important topic. The 2nd is it's looking at the entirety of it, which is not just capital rules itself, but stress testing and everything that goes into the final number. The way I think about it is that capital and capital regulation is an important part of a healthy banking system and of growth. It is what you do to run a robust banking system. Ring-fencing is important. It's a bedrock of depositor protection. What it helps is with the so-called gone concern.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

It is if a bank has a problem like Icelandic banks did in 2007, 2008, then how do you make sure that depositors get their deposits back over and above the protection scheme? What can you do in terms of the assets that are attached to those deposits? The governor of the Bank of England a few weeks ago spoke at the Treasury Select Committee, and he made a point that about 99% of assets from ring-fenced banks are deployed within the U.K., and 32% of the corresponding assets from non-ring-fenced banks are deployed in the U.K. That's the illustration of the problem. That's why I continue to believe strongly in the maintenance and sustenance of that ring-fence as it is structured. I mean, let's see what comes out of the government review, but that's my view, certainly.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Then on capital, as I said, that is part of growing the economy and growing the banking system. Now, the governor made another point last week at the Treasury Select Committee where he said there's no trade-off between financial stability and growth. He's absolutely right. Financial stability is a sine qua non. It's a necessity. Not all regulation necessarily contributes to financial stability. That is where the debate is to be had. Which regulation is excessive, superfluous, gilding the lady in the whole capital framework? Can you relax some of that regulation and improve growth? I'm optimistic for those outcomes.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Perhaps we can go to our next question, please, operator.

Operator

The next question comes from Jonathan Pierce from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Jonathan Pierce
Jonathan Pierce
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Hello, both. Two questions, please.

Jonathan Pierce
Jonathan Pierce
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

The first is on these additional structural hedge tailwinds that you've alluded to post-2026. The yield on the hedge at the moment is about 2.5%. If you take your guidance over the next 18 months, we're probably exiting next year at about 3.2%. If you're assuming a reinvestment rate of 3.5%, where is the extra tailwind coming from into 2027 and beyond? Is it just an averaging effect of the 2026 maturities, or is there something a bit more material going on? That is the 1st question. The 2nd question. I'm going to try again on capital if that's okay. At the moment, I understand you want to operate in the upper half of your 13-14% equity to a one-target range. Consensus, though, is still a bit above 14% by the end of 2027. How are you thinking this sort of pans out?

Jonathan Pierce
Jonathan Pierce
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

I note your comments on Pillar 2A dropping with U.S. IRB and Basel 3.1, and I suppose one for one, that would reduce your equity requirement by maybe 50 basis points. Then you've got this point on the FPC having a look, and maybe something happens there elsewhere in the capital stack. Into the medium term, would it be unreasonable to assume that you could operate towards the lower end of the 13-14% range? Obviously, the delta there versus consensus would be worth about GBP 4 billion, which is not immaterial. Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thanks, Jonathan. The comment on the structural hedge tailwinds is this. It is just to help people sort of think beyond, I guess, the targets that we've already given you for 2026 and to understand how we feel about NII growth through 2026 and beyond.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

The average yield on the structural hedge in 2027 will still be below 3.5%. Simplistically, that is what we're saying. There is nothing funny or quirky or anything in the kind of 2026 maturities. It is literally that simple. That is what we're drawing out there. I think the other point that we are drawing out this time that's perhaps a little bit different is the locked-in level of that hedge. Remember that this year, and you can see it on the structural hedge slide on slide nine, the locked-in amount for this year is 97%. A bit lower than that next year, but you can see us really getting good line of sight of that 80%. To your second question. Look, from our perspective, we still think 13-14% is the right target range for us. We plan across multiple, multiple years when it comes to capital.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

There are a few regulatory moving parts out there, whether that be what the FPC is doing. Obviously, we do not know what is happening yet on Basel III. In terms of Pillar 2A. We also do not know what is happening in terms of sort of international alignment. There is a lot on the regulatory front that is still uncertain. What is important to us is that we are delivering on our distributions as we currently set them out, so at least GBP 10 billion. You can see that prioritization that we are doing there. Fundamentally, the plan was designed to create a higher returning bank. Importantly, what you are seeing now is a bank with higher returns and higher capital. That is really, really important for the consistency, not only of shareholder distributions, but our ability to invest in the businesses longer term.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We are happy with the range that we have got, and we will just await regulatory clarity when it comes.

Jonathan Pierce
Jonathan Pierce
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Understood. I do not suppose any chance you could tell us what the maturity yield on the hedges is in 2027?

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Not off the top of my head. The average is about three, but we will come back to you if there is anything that we can help you on the detail.

Jonathan Pierce
Jonathan Pierce
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Okay. Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Sorry, that was three years average rather than the specific maturing yield. We will come back to you. Okay. Right. Next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

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

Yeah. Morning, everybody. Two questions on RWAs in the investment bank. I guess the dynamics here in Q2 feel similar to what we saw in Q3 last year.

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

US dollar depreciation, Q on Q. Last year, you let that feed through to lower headline RWAs. This quarter, that has not been the case. I guess what has changed there? This quarter, without reinvesting the FX tailwind, you would have obviously seen a step down in RWAs as a percentage of group towards the target. You would have seen the CET1 tailwind, but then you also, I guess, would have missed out on some commercial opportunities. I suppose being there for clients on the financing side continues to be an important part of the rankings improvements you flagged. How are you thinking about juggling those priorities given that they may be, at the margin, a little bit mutually exclusive? Do you feel comfortable saying 56% is peak and it trends down from here? Secondly, just a confirmation, I think, on RWA productivity. There was a tick down in the 2nd quarter.

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

Obviously, Q1 was quite a high number. Anything you want to call out in the quarter? Maybe it's the ICB one-offs, Q on Q. It feels like that level of RWA productivity is a level that would support the ROT target for next year. I just wanted to check that you agree with that. Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thanks, Chris. Look, step back for a minute. The RWAs in the IB have been broadly flat for three and a half years. That is our clear strategic intent. What we keep coming back to quarter after quarter after quarter, it's a key part of the plan and the capital discipline that we talked about. What you might see in any particular quarter is either higher or lower levels of client activity as we pass the quarter end. It's honestly nothing more than that.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

You can see that we are very disciplined in the way that we manage our risk. You can see that in the VaR and in the loss days. If you look at the distribution of trading income, that's all on page 37. We deployed more RWAs to support clients, not really in taking materially more risk. That's what you should expect us to do. We really don't feel that RWA discipline and growth in the IB are mutually exclusive. Since the beginning of the plan, the IB RWAs, as I said, well, more than the plan for two years before the plan started, have been flat. We've got an income CAGR of 9%. That's what we're trying to do here. I think you're seeing that flow through into the 2nd part of your question, which is really about ROT productivity. There's a clear seasonality to the IB.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Generally, higher in Q1, higher in Q2, then Q3 and Q4, typically. You're seeing nothing more than a seasonal change. Year-on-year, it's up meaningfully, I think, 80 basis points year on year. What we're doing here, which is driving capital discipline in banking and driving our focus businesses in markets, is working. What's really important to us, and it is probably the most important part of the plan for me, is not just the returns in the IB, but the consistency of those returns. That's really important. You're going to see that, hopefully in the coming quarters.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

I'll just add not just consistency, but quality. Consistency and quality go together, right? As we do more in financing revenue, as we do more in corporate banking revenue, you get the consistency, but you're also getting more predictable high-quality revenues. Endorse everything Anna just said, obviously.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you very much, Chris. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please, operator.

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Coombs from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Andrew Coombs
Andrew Coombs
Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. One on the U.K. and one on the U.S., please. On the U.K., I just wanted to come back to the deposit trends. You talked about being disciplined on term deposit pricing against very tough competition. If I look back over a longer period of time, your deposit balance has contracted in four to five of the last quarters. Perhaps you could just elaborate on how you think about margins versus volumes on that U.K. deposit book, what it would take for you to re-engage in terms of pricing dynamics more broadly across the space. Secondly, on U.S.

Andrew Coombs
Andrew Coombs
Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup

consumer, I wanted to ask about makeshift and what it means for your targets. If I look at your NIM in U.S. consumer, impressive Q on Q improvement of 30 basis points. At the same time, you're talking about a $50 million additional charge over the next few quarters from Q4 on post-acquisition to stage migration from General Motors. Just given that makeshift that you've seen with AA coming out, General Motors coming on, what does it mean for your targets, the $40 billion receivables, the greater than 12% NIM, the 400 basis points cost of risk in that division? They're all now subject to slight change. Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thanks, Andy. I'll take both of those. We had a similar question on deposit trends earlier in the call. There's nothing specific going on here.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We feel like we're broadly following our peers in terms of market shares, particularly in current accounts. You can see that, as I said, in the role of the hedge. Let me specifically speak about fixed-term deposits and the ICC season, which I think is probably what's underpinning your question. So, look, the ICC season was very, very different this year. We can all, I guess, have a view about why that might be the case. It was bigger and earlier than we've ever seen before. If you look at the quantum of flows during the early part of April, I think the second week of April, the flows on those products were around GBP 6 billion, not for us, but for the market. If you look at the average of May and June, that's more like GBP 1 billion a week.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

That gives you an idea of the scale of flows. The pricing we felt was not economic, and therefore, we stepped back from fixed-term pricing in that ICC season and remained disciplined. We did, however, grow our ISA balances year on year and feel like we had a good season. Where we think it's important for the relationship, we do step into pricing. You can see there's a divergence between our core pricing and our relationship pricing. Over time, you might see that you've seen it widening, particularly through Q2. It is important to us, but we're not going to price uneconomically in the market whilst we have a stable underlying base. Just moving to U.S. consumer. Look, we've said a number of times it's a plan in many parts. It's about NIM. You're seeing NIM going up. Why is it going up?

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

It's because we repriced the book last year, and that's feeding through. It's also because U.S. deposits are up 27% in that business. The cost-to-income ratio is now 48%, and it's headed downwards, and risk is well controlled. We are controlling everything that we can within that business and driving the operational discipline, as we said we would in the plan. We clearly still have ambition to grow in the business, and we're looking for a balance, you might recall, of being roughly 15% in retail at the moment and moving much more towards 20% in retail. Actually, General Motors will fulfill a large part of that move for us. That will clearly flow into NIM and will give us a better risk-adjusted return, which is what we are trying to do. We do want to grow this business. We've gained one partner in General Motors. We've retained four.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

ROTI is the North Star. We're not going to grow it to meet a target and compromise ROTI. Indeed, that's true of every single business across all five divisions. Okay. Thank you, Andy. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please, operator.

Operator

Our next question comes from Amit Goel from Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Amit Goel
Managing Director at Mediobanca

Hi. Thank you. Two questions. One, again, just to follow up on the product margin. I just wanted to check what your thinking is in terms of 2026, given there are a few more kind of parts to it. Versus 2025. Would you expect a positive contribution then? I guess I'm just thinking that. In terms of the broader guide, so there's the 7.6 of NII in 2025. There's 2/3 of roughly a billion hedge benefit in 2026. That by itself gets you to kind of the 8.3 consensus NII.

Amit Goel
Managing Director at Mediobanca

There's potentially a little bit of volume growth. The product margin is kind of the delta then. The 2nd question, just on the IB, I mean, I think it was obviously a very strong performance in markets. Costs were well contained. Just curious how you're thinking about investment then also into that business and managing that cost piece if revenues continue to be strong. Thank you.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thank you, Anna. I'll take the 1st and then hand to Venkat for the 2nd. Look, as I said, it's a bit too early to talk about 2026 NII or particularly the product margin. I just call out a couple of things, one on the numerator and one on the denominator. On the denominator, we do intend to continue to originate assets. You can see that coming through not only in our strong mortgage growth.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We've had four consecutive quarters of mortgage growth on a net basis. Cards continue to grow. Now, clearly, more mortgages in the mix will slightly dilute your margin, but only on a mixed basis, higher NII, of course. Think growth in assets, but I would call out this maturity of the cards and promotional cards balances. We said it would start in 2025. Actually, the longer maturities, which is the larger part of the promotional balance mix, really start to mature in 2026 and beyond. You're going to see a bit more from there. I think you've got a numerator and a denominator impact, Amit, which is why I'm not going to be drawing on the product margin specifically. Venkat?

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Yeah.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Amit, when we announced our plan six quarters ago, one of the things we said about the investment bank is that in markets, we had been doing a lot of investment in technology over the past few years and that we would expect to see the benefits of that investment coming through during the period of this plan. That's what we're seeing. In banking, we said that we'd identified important segments of the market. Including tech and healthcare, M&A, and also capabilities in the corporate and transaction bank, which we were investing in. We've been doing so, and I think we're seeing the results of that. Expectations should be that we continue to operate according to the plan we laid out.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thank you very much, Amit. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please, operator, noting that that last question, that is the last question of the call.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Thank you.

Operator

Of course. Our final question today comes from Perlie Mong from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Perlie Mong
Perlie Mong
UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America

Hello. Hi, Anna. Hi, Venkat. Thank you for taking my question. Just a couple of quick ones. The U.K. noted that very clearly, done GBP 10 billion of organic. All to be allocation to the business. I guess there is a little bit of nervousness about a U.K. macro from here. Certainly, there are some nervousness around what the autumn budget might have. In the case that confidence drops off and maybe activity comes down and you find it more difficult to allocate the remaining RWAs in the U.K. business, do you have a plan B? Would you do acquisition to top it up to make sure you hit GBP 30 billion?

Perlie Mong
Perlie Mong
UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America

If that's the case, how would you think about that in the context of the GBP 10 billion distribution? I guess that's number one. Number two, quickly touching on cost. I think previously you've said that you would expect cost to come down in 2027. I guess it looks like the efficiency savings are coming through as expected, all on track. If anything, the ethics should be a little bit of help as well. Is that still what you would expect, that GBP 17, sort of maybe closer to GBP 17 billion next year?

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Okay. Thank you, Perlie. We're pleased with the GBP 10 billion organic growth in the U.K. You can see from slide 13 that that momentum is picking up, not just in BUK, in the areas that we've talked about before, which is cards and mortgages. We talk about a lot, but also in U.K. corporate.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

We've had three successive quarters of growth in U.K. corporate. You can actually see BUK business banking now starting to turn. When we set our plan, we focused that plan on areas where we were either underweight or we felt we had opportunities to grow because we'd lost market share. That's true of, for example, high loan-to-value mortgages or corporate and business banking where we have had a much higher loan-to-deposit ratio than our peers in the past. We remain confident that we can deploy that. Noting that we're at a run rate of around GBP 2 billion per quarter in 2025. We're at GBP 17 billion at the halfway point. We've got six quarters to go. You can do the maths, particularly given that that momentum appears to be picking up. It is and always has been an organic plan. Our capital hierarchy, as I said before, remains intact.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

Number one, regulation. Number two, at least GBP 10 billion. Number three, deploy capital into the U.K. We're not going to compromise on the quality or the returns of that lending in order to meet a target. We're very disciplined. On the 2nd question, actually, we said it was 2026 when costs would come down. That's still our plan. Our cost-income ratio guidance for the full year of this year is 61%. You can see that we've got a strong platform for that from the 1st half. I just note a couple of things. Firstly, income's a bit seasonal. Secondly, the fact that we did say that we would expect to skew our structural cost actions into the 2nd half of the year. We've done about GBP 100 million so far. Expect us to be at the top end of the GBP 200 million-GBP 300 million.

Anna Cross
Anna Cross
Group Finance Director at Barclays

All of that is contained in the 61% guidance that we've given you for the cost-income ratio. At this point, we're at GBP 1.35 billion through a GBP 2 billion target. We feel like we've got real momentum. Apparently, I wouldn't change how we feel about the 2026 cost position. It's a really, really key part of the plan and delivering high returns, more consistent returns. With that, we will close the call. I'd like to thank you for all of your questions today. We look forward to seeing many of you either on the road over the next few days or indeed on the analyst call next Monday. If we don't see you then, have a good summer break when it comes.

Perlie Mong
Perlie Mong
UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you for that.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan
C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Group Chief Executive at Barclays

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

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

Executives
    • C.S. Venkatakrishnan
      C.S. Venkatakrishnan
      Group Chief Executive
    • Anna Cross
      Anna Cross
      Group Finance Director
Analysts
    • Chris Hallam
      Managing Director and Head of European Financials Research at Goldman Sachs
    • Guy Stebbings
      Executive Director of European Banks Research at BNP Paribas
    • Jason Napier
      Head of European Banks Research at UBS
    • Rob Noble
      Banks Analyst at Deutsche Bank
    • Perlie Mong
      UK Banks Analyst at Bank of America
    • Jonathan Pierce
      Equity Analyst at Jefferies
    • Andrew Coombs
      Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup
    • Alvaro Serrano
      Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
    • Chris Kent
      Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Autonomous
    • Amit Goel
      Managing Director at Mediobanca
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