Barclays posts profit beat and announces £1bn share buyback
Pre-tax profit rose 28% in the second quarter to £2.84bn, results released on Tuesday showed. That exceeded expectations of £2.24bn, according to consensus estimates provided by the bank. For the first half, profit before tax totalled £5.2bn, which was up 23% from the same period last year.
Total income was up 14% in the second quarter at £7.19bn, which was also ahead of expectations of £7.01bn.
Group net interest income — the gap between what the bank pays out to savers and receives from borrowers in interest — excluding Barclays Investment Bank and head office, came in at £3.1bn, up 13% year-on-year.
Barclays also recorded a return on tangible equity — a key measure of profitability — of 12.3% in the second quarter, up from 9.9% for the same period in 2024.
The bank announced a further share buyback of £1bn and a half-year dividend of 3p per share. This came after Barclays said on Friday that it had completed the £1bn share buyback programme it announced in its full-year results in February.
Barclays CEO CS Venkatakrishnan, known as Venkat, said: "We remain on track to achieve the objectives of our three-year plan, delivering structurally higher and more stable returns for our investors.
Read more: NatWest beats on profits and announces £750m share buyback
"At the mid-point of the plan, with six quarters of consistent execution, we have achieved over half of the c.£30bn planned UK risk weighted assets (RWAs) growth, half of the target income growth and realised two-thirds of the £2bn planned gross cost efficiency savings."
The bank had posted a stronger-than-expected 19% rise in first-quarter profits in results released at the end of April, as improved performance in its investment banking division helped the UK lender outpace analyst forecasts.
Pre-tax profit for the three months to March rose to £2.7bn, exceeding analysts' expectations of £2.49bn, according to data from LSEG. Group revenues reached £7.7bn, also ahead of the consensus estimate of £7.33bn.
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