Barclays has published its Half Year 2019 Results

Jes Staley, Group CEO said: “This was another resilient quarter of performance.

For the second quarter in succession Barclays generated an attributable profit of over £1 billion, and delivered EPS of 12.6p for the first half of 2019.

Our Group Return on Tangible Equity of 9.3% for the quarter is a further step towards meeting our 2019 RoTE target of greater than 9%.

Our reported CET1 ratio increased by 40 basis points in Q2 to 13.4%, demonstrating the strong capital generation capacity of the business.

Barclays UK continued to build its mortgage and deposit balances, with stable credit metrics. This has partially offset the reduction in net interest margin from increased levels of customer refinancing, and lower interest earnings from UK cards balances. Digital engagement with our UK customers is at an all time high, with just under 8 million customers now digitally active on the Barclays App.

The Corporate & Investment Bank produced a 9.3% return in the quarter, and we saw market outperformance in Banking fees and in Fixed income, Currencies and Credit.

Consumer, Cards & Payments continues to progress, producing an RoTE of 18% in the quarter and 16.7% for the half year.

Management focus on cost control remains a priority, and we expect to reduce expenses to below £13.6 billion for 2019.

This all puts us in a position to continue to increase the return of capital to shareholders by declaring a half year dividend of 3 pence. The half year dividend is around a third of what we expect to pay in total in a given year under normal circumstances. This increase in ordinary dividend reflects the confidence that the Board and management have in the sustainable earnings generation of our business.

Barclays’ progressive capital returns policy, and intention to supplement the ordinary dividend with additional cash returns, including share buybacks when appropriate, remains unchanged.”