Barclays alters retail structure

BARCLAYS is changing its retail and business banking structure under new chief executive Antony Jenkins and has appointed the separate heads of retail banking and credit cards to its executive committee.

Jenkins will scrap the title of chief executive of retail and business banking, the position he held before being promoted to group chief executive, that also oversaw its BarclayCard credit card business. Instead, Ashok Vaswani will oversee all retail and business banking, expanding from the UK operations he currently runs, and join the bank’s executive committee. BarclayCard chief Valerie Soranno Keating will also join the committee. – Reuters businesses to keep running even if other parts of the group collapsed, some experts say.

It would affect European banks such as Britain’s Barclays, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and France’s BNP Paribas, which engage in high street banking alongside riskier trading in stocks, debt and other securities.

With property crashes in Spain, Ireland and elsewhere having triggered problems for banks, there is also a recommendation to consider specific capital charges to cover risks from property loans on a bank’s books. But European policymakers, struggling to contain the regional debt crisis, are set to give priority to creating a banking union that would allow euro zone countries to jointly support banks.

Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of regulation, said: “I will now consider the next steps, in which the commission will look at the impact of these recommendations both on growth and on the safety and integrity of financial services.” – Reuters