I deserve my £1.1m bonus, says bank chief

Mr Jenkins was challenged over accepting the £1.1m bonus, which helps to boost his total pay package from £1.6m to £5.5m. Mr Jenkins, who had declined the pay-out for each of the last two years, recognised he was very well paid, but insisted that the decision to accept the bonus was “appropriate”.

His total pay package is also swollen by a new role-based allowance of £950,000 and a long-term award worth £1.85m, on top of a basic salary of £1.1m, plus benefits worth £100,000 and pension of £363,000.

Mr Jenkins said: “You have to look at the very significant progress that we have made in Barclays in the two-and-a-half years that I have been chief executive.

“I completely understand that I am very well remunerated for what I do. But... I think it is appropriate that I accept my bonus.

“It is not a decision I take lightly and I declined it in the previous two years.

“When I come to 2015, I will do the same careful thinking about whether I should accept it given the progress the bank has made.”

Mr Jenkins pointed to progress in shoring up the bank’s balance sheet and cutting costs.

“All of these things seemed to me to be reasons why it was appropriate that I accept the bonus on this occasion,’’ he added.

Meanwhile, the bank has cut the level of total bonus pay-outs by 22 per cent to £1.86bn. It was down 24 per cent to £1.05bn for the investment bank.

Sir John Sunderland, chair of the board’s remuneration committee, said in considering final bonuses, it took into account the ongoing probe into alleged foreign exchange rate rigging. Barclays has set aside a total of £1.25bn over the affair.

The bank said in its annual report, published alongside its final results, that the number of employees earning more than £1m in total remuneration had reduced from 481 in 2013 to 359 in 2014.

It comes after criticism of the level of bonuses at last year’s annual general meeting, when it was accused of “paying for Manchester United but getting Colchester United”.

Over the year, Barclays slashed 14,000 jobs - with another 5,000 to go by 2016 - and closed a net 72 branches.

Mr Jenkins said the bank was now stronger than at any time since the financial crisis, as it announced a 12 per cent rise in adjusted pre-tax profits to a better-than-expected £5.5bn.

But he said the forex scandal continued to “cast a shadow” over the business, though he hoped there would be steps towards resolving it this year.

The latest provision for the affair helped drag statutory profits down 21 per cent to £2.26bn. Shares fell, with the dividend flat at 6.5p.

Mr Jenkins said: “While our work in transforming the bank is not complete, our performance in 2014 gives us confidence that we are on the right track.”

The bottom-line figure was also affected by an extra £200m provision to cover compensation for customers mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI), taking the total for the year to £1.27bn and overall to £5.22bn.

There was a £446m write-off on the sale of Barclays’ Spanish business and a “conservative and prudent” £935m mark-down in the value of a £17bn loan book covering various public sector bodies, under new accounting methods.

Investec analyst Ian Gordon described the statutory result after accounting for one-off charges as “weak”.

Shore Capital’s Gary Greenwood said: “Despite the earnings shortfall versus our estimates... we believe that the company is making good progress towards reshaping the business and improving balance sheet strength.”

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Profits have fallen at Barclays Bank and they have had to make huge provision for fines. The chief executive rightly recognises that the bank’s culture must change, but it is hard to have a positive view of any organisation that pays its boss £5.5m in a single year - a sum that would take a full-time worker on the minimum wage 465 years to earn.”