Barclays to cut 3700 jobs following interest rate scandal

Barclays will cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring, the bank said Tuesday. The layoffs follow a scandal-ridden year for Barclays, which was was forced to pay a $453 million fine for manipulating a key market interest rate that serves as the basis for trillions in mortgage loans.

|
Alistair Grant/AP
Customers wait outside a retail branch of Barclays Bank for the bank to open in London, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Barclays PLC has announced plans to cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring that follows a scandal-hit year for the UK bank.

Barclays PLC has announced plans to cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring that follows a scandal-hit year for the U.K. bank.

The bank said Tuesday it will cut at least 1,800 positions in the Corporate and Investment Bank unit and 1,900 retail and business banking jobs outside the U.K.

The cuts come after the British institution was forced to pay a $453 million fine for manipulating a key market interest rate that serves as the basis for trillions in mortgage loans. A slew of executives, including chief executive, Bob Diamond, were forced to resign. It also faced criticism for mis-selling of insurance and interest rate products to consumers and small businesses.

The bank's new CEO, Antony Jenkins, has warned his staff that making money won't be the only thing on which they'll be judged. Ethics count — and matter more in the long run than what happens in the fourth quarter.

"It's not complicated," he told the BBC. "It's about recognizing that we're in business to serve our customers and clients, to deliver return for our shareholders. But also to be good for the societies where we do business, particularly Britain, where we are a major bank."

He said the bank has already taken steps to back his words. Barclays has closed the structured capital markets business — which sought ways for its customers to pay less tax on their investments — as well as cutting bonuses and removing branch sales incentives. Even so, he said it would take years before "people changed their impression of us."

"Believe me, I understand the cynics and the skeptics out there," he told the BBC. "But cynics and skeptics never built anything. This is about fundamentally changing Barclays. And we will be judged by our actions not our words."

Barclays recorded a loss of 236 million pounds ($368 million) for 2012 against a net profit of 3.9 billion pounds for 2011. It made 2.45 billion pounds in provisions in 2012 for compensating clients for the mis-sold products.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Barclays to cut 3700 jobs following interest rate scandal
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0212/Barclays-to-cut-3700-jobs-following-interest-rate-scandal
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe