Barclays to shed 3,700 jobs after series of scandals

The bank, which last year was slapped with a £290m fine for rigging the London interbank offered rate (Libor), also faces a probe over funds raised from Qatari investors at the peak of the financial crisis.

But new chief executive Antony Jenkins insisted Barclays is putting the past behind it as it unveiled a turnaround plan dubbed “Transform” which involves axing four of its 75 divisions and attempting to regain the public’s trust.

“There’s no choice between doing well financially and behaving well in this business,” said Mr Jenkins. “Barclays is changing. There will be no going back to the old ways of doing things. We get it.”

Only a “few hundred” of the 3,700 jobs will be cut in the UK.

Barclays said it plans to pay its investment bankers an average bonus of £54,100, down 17 per cent on last year. Bonuses at the bank will total £1.85bn, down 14 per cent on last year.

Mr Jenkins, the Stoke-born former head of its high street banking division, replaced Bob Diamond, who quit in the wake of the Libor scandal.

Mr Jenkins admitted the public may be sceptical about the bank’s attempt to change its culture.

“I completely understand why there’s cynicism and scepticism out there in the world because of the track record of banks in the past,” he said. “Judge us by what we actually deliver over the next one, two, five and 10 years.”

It reported adjusted pre-tax profits of £7bn for 2012, up 26 per cent on a year earlier. But once a credit charge and mis-selling provisions were factored in, pre-tax profits fell steeply from £5.9bn a year ago to £246m.

Barclays has set aside another £1.6bn to cover compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance – taking its total PPI provision to £2.6bn. It also made an £850m provision to cover interest rate swaps mis-sold to businesses.