Barclays (BARC.L) — Company Research

Last Updated: 14 September 2026

Barclays PLC is a British universal bank with two engines that rarely fire at the same time: a large UK high-street and corporate bank, and a global markets and investment bank run mainly out of London and New York. That mix has historically made the shares volatile and cheap. In 2025 and the first half of 2026 both engines fired together, and the company has since raised its income target and set a fresh three-year plan running to 2028. This report sets out what the filings actually say, with every figure taken from the published results announcements, the 2025 Annual Report and the group's SEC filings. There are no analyst opinions, price targets or ratings anywhere in it.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	BARC.L — London Stock Exchange (ADS: BCS, NYSE)
Sector	Banking — diversified UK retail, corporate and global investment banking
Share price	493.75p (12 September 2026 close)
Market cap	£66.2bn
Shares in issue	~13.41bn ordinary shares
Revenue (FY2025 total income)	£29,140m, up 9% on FY2024
Profit before tax (FY2025)	£9,139m, up 13%
Attributable profit (FY2025)	£6,175m, up 16%
Basic EPS (FY2025)	43.8p
Return on tangible equity (H1 2026)	14.8% (FY2025: 11.3%)
CET1 capital ratio (30 June 2026)	14.3%, against a 13–14% target range
Tangible net asset value per share (30 June 2026)	423p (31 December 2025: 409p)
Total assets (30 June 2026)	£1,730.4bn
Dividend per share (FY2025)	8.6p, plus £2.5bn of buybacks announced for the year
Employees	93,000 full-time equivalent staff at 31 December 2025 (2025 Annual Report)
CEO / Leadership	C.S. Venkatakrishnan, Group Chief Executive since November 2021; Anna Cross, Group Finance Director; Nigel Higgins, Group Chairman
Headquarters	1 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London

Live price action and technical levels for Barclays and other UK banks are on the ChartsView Live Charts page.

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Both engines finally firing: H1 2026 total income was £16,501m, up 11% year on year, with profit before tax of £6,066m, up 17%. Every one of the five operating divisions delivered a double-digit return on tangible equity in FY2025 — the first time the group has managed that under the current reporting structure.
• Targets being raised, not missed: management lifted the 2026 group income target by roughly £500m to about £31.5bn at the H1 2026 results on 28 July 2026, and H1 return on tangible equity of 14.8% is already ahead of the "greater than 12%" full-year 2026 target.
• A large, visible capital return: alongside FY2025 results the board set out more than £15bn of capital distributions across 2026 to 2028, having already returned roughly £3.0bn in 2024 and £3.7bn in 2025. On a £66bn market value, that is a material share of the company being bought back or paid out.
• Tangible book value compounding: tangible net asset value per share has moved from 331p at the end of 2023 to 409p at the end of 2025 and 423p at 30 June 2026. The shares trade close to reported book value, so growth in book value has translated fairly directly into share-price progress.

Bear Case

• Investment bank concentration: the Investment Bank produced £13,055m of FY2025 income, 44.8% of the group total, and earned the lowest divisional return on tangible equity at 10.6%. Markets income is cyclical, and a quiet year there would take a large bite out of group profit.
• Motor finance redress still open: the provision for UK motor finance commission redress rose to £430m at H1 2026. The Financial Conduct Authority has finalised an industry-wide scheme, but parts of it were suspended by the Upper Tribunal on 2 July 2026, so the final bill and timing are not yet settled.
• Credit is normalising upward: the loan loss rate rose to 62 basis points in H1 2026 from 52 basis points a year earlier, including a £228m single-name charge in the Investment Bank. Impairments have been running below through-the-cycle levels for some time.
• The structural hedge tailwind has an end date: a meaningful slice of recent net interest income growth comes from the rolling structural hedge re-pricing older, low-yielding positions at higher rates. That is a known, time-limited benefit rather than a permanent uplift.

3. Revenue Segments

Barclays reports five operating divisions plus Head Office. The figures below are total income for the year ended 31 December 2025, as published in the FY2025 results announcement.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Barclays Investment Bank (£13,055m)	44.8%	Global markets (fixed income, currencies, commodities and equities), investment banking advisory and capital markets, plus international corporate banking. FY2025 return on tangible equity 10.6%.
Barclays UK (£8,708m)	29.9%	The ring-fenced UK retail bank: current accounts, savings, mortgages, credit cards and small business banking, now including the Tesco Bank book acquired in November 2024. FY2025 return on tangible equity 20.7%.
Barclays US Consumer Bank (£3,681m)	12.6%	US co-branded credit cards, retail deposits and, since May 2026, the Best Egg personal loan platform. FY2025 return on tangible equity 11.0%.
Barclays UK Corporate Bank (£2,064m)	7.1%	Lending, transaction banking, trade and payments for UK mid-market and large corporate clients. FY2025 return on tangible equity 18.9%.
Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management (£1,380m)	4.7%	Discretionary and advisory investment management, lending and banking for high-net-worth clients. FY2025 return on tangible equity 26.3%, the highest in the group.
Head Office (£252m)	0.9%	Treasury, legacy portfolios and central items not allocated to the operating divisions.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Barclays earns income in three broad ways. Net interest income comes from lending at a higher rate than it pays on deposits and wholesale funding, and is the dominant source in Barclays UK, the UK Corporate Bank and the US Consumer Bank. Fee and commission income comes from advisory work, underwriting, payments, card interchange and wealth management. Trading income comes from making markets in bonds, currencies, commodities and equities for institutional clients. FY2025 net interest income was £7,294m on the group's SEC-filed measure of net interest revenue, with the balance of the £29,140m total income coming from fees, commissions and trading.

Unit economics and the structural hedge. A bank's margin is not simply the gap between today's lending and deposit rates. Barclays runs a large rolling hedge programme that spreads the interest earned on non-interest-bearing balances over several years. Positions written at very low rates in 2020 and 2021 are still maturing and being replaced at higher yields, which is why net interest income has kept rising even after the Bank of England began cutting. This is mechanical and disclosed, and it is also finite.

Where the moat actually is. In the UK, the moat is a current-account franchise that is expensive to replicate and slow to move — customers change banks rarely, and those balances fund lending cheaply. Ring-fencing legislation, which forces Barclays to hold Barclays UK as a separately capitalised entity, is a constraint but also a barrier: the regulatory and capital cost of building a comparable UK deposit base from scratch is prohibitive. In the investment bank the moat is narrower and rests on scale in fixed income and equities, balance-sheet capacity and a global client list — real advantages, but ones that competitors with deeper pockets can and do attack.

What the group is buying. Recent acquisitions have deliberately tilted the mix towards consumer lending: Tesco Bank in November 2024 for around £600m, and Best Egg, a US personal loan originator, completed on 1 May 2026 for about £0.6bn. At the same time it exited the American Airlines co-branded card portfolio in April 2026, releasing £3.6bn of risk-weighted assets for a gain of roughly £225m. The direction is towards higher-returning, capital-lighter consumer balances.

5. Financial Health

Barclays reports in pounds sterling. "Total income" is the group's top line and is stated net of interest expense, which is the standard presentation for a bank. All figures below come from the group's published results announcements, the 2025 Annual Report and the XBRL data in its SEC filings.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	21,940	n/a	37.5p	37.5p†	6.0p	£98,867m
FY2022	24,956	+13.7%	30.8p	30.8p†	7.25p	£112,881m
FY2023	25,378	+1.7%	27.7p	27.7p†	8.0p	£96,825m
FY2024	26,788	+5.6%	36.0p	36.0p†	8.4p	£92,402m
FY2025	29,140	+8.8%	43.8p	43.8p†	8.6p	£119,033m

† Barclays does not publish an adjusted or non-GAAP earnings per share figure. The statutory basic earnings per share is repeated in that column so the table stays complete. The long-term debt column is debt securities in issue at amortised cost at each year end, taken from the group's SEC XBRL data (Barclays PLC, CIK 0000312069); it is the closest disclosed equivalent to term debt for a bank, and excludes customer deposits and repurchase agreements, which are operating funding rather than debt.

Total income has compounded at about 7.4% a year across the five years, driven by higher interest rates from 2022 onwards and by a recovery in investment banking activity in 2025 and 2026. Earnings per share has grown faster than income because the share count has fallen materially — from roughly 17.0bn shares in 2021 to about 13.4bn now — as a result of sustained buybacks.

Quarter / Half	Revenue (£m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026	8,338	16.7p†	16.7p
Q1 2026	8,163	14.1p†	14.1p
Q4 2025	7,077	8.6p†	8.6p
Q3 2025	7,167	10.4p†	10.4p
Q2 2025	7,187	11.7p†	11.7p
FY2025 total	29,140	43.8p†	43.8p

Capital and balance sheet position at 30 June 2026: CET1 capital ratio 14.3%, at the top of the 13–14% target range even after buybacks; total assets £1,730.4bn; tangible net asset value 423p per share; net asset value 489p per share. The cost-to-income ratio was 55% in H1 2026, down from 58% a year earlier.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	£66.2bn (493.75p × ~13.41bn shares, 12 September 2026)
Enterprise value	n/m — enterprise value is not meaningful for a bank, because deposits, repurchase agreements and debt securities in issue are the raw material of the business rather than financing of an operating asset base. For reference: market cap £66.2bn, total equity attributable to shareholders £77,784m at 31 December 2025 per SEC XBRL, total assets £1,730.4bn at 30 June 2026.
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~10.3x (493.75p / trailing twelve-month basic EPS of 48.0p). Barclays publishes no adjusted EPS, so there is no separate adjusted multiple.
P/E (forward)	~7.7x on a consensus-derived forward EPS of about 64.3p; the company itself does not publish an EPS forecast, only a return-on-tangible-equity target of above 12% for 2026 and above 14% for 2028.
P/S (TTM)	~2.2x (market cap £66.2bn / trailing twelve-month total income of about £30.7bn, being FY2025 £29,140m less H1 2025 £14,896m plus H1 2026 £16,501m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	n/m — banks do not report EBITDA, and depreciation and interest are not meaningful add-backs when interest is the revenue line. Price/book and price/tangible book are the standard substitutes and are given below.
Price/book	~1.01x (493.75p against net asset value of 489p per share at 30 June 2026)
Price/tangible book	~1.17x (493.75p against tangible net asset value of 423p per share at 30 June 2026)
P/FCF	n/m — free cash flow as normally defined does not apply to a bank, because operating cash flow is dominated by movements in customer deposits, trading assets and repurchase agreements rather than by trading profitability. Distributable capital generation is the relevant measure: more than £15bn of capital distributions are planned for 2026 to 2028 against a £66.2bn market value.
Dividend yield	~2.3% on the FY2025 dividend of 8.6p; total shareholder return per share including buybacks was equivalent to about 26.4p for FY2025
52-week high	538.30p
52-week low	353.55p
Short interest (% of float)	— not published for this period. The Financial Conduct Authority moved its short-selling register to anonymised aggregate disclosure only from 13 July 2026, so individual net short positions in UK-listed shares are no longer public. Verify at fca.org.uk/publication/data/short-positions-daily-update.xlsx
Days to cover	— not published for this period, for the same reason as above. US short-interest data exists for the BCS American Depositary Share line but covers a different security and float, and is not comparable.

7. What Are They Building

The 2028 plan. At the FY2025 results on 10 February 2026 Barclays replaced its earlier three-year plan with a new set of targets running to 2028: a group return on tangible equity above 14% in 2028, and cumulative capital distributions of more than £15bn across 2026 to 2028, with a stated preference for buybacks over special dividends. Ordinary dividends are paid twice a year and buybacks are announced quarterly. The earlier plan, set in February 2024, targeted £10bn of returns across 2024 to 2026 and is on track to be exceeded.

Rebuilding the consumer lending book. The Tesco Bank acquisition completed in November 2024 brought a credit card and personal loan book that is now growing under Clubcard branding inside Barclays UK. In the United States, the group sold the American Airlines co-branded card portfolio in April 2026 and bought Best Egg, a direct personal-loan originator, on 1 May 2026. The effect is to swap partner-dependent airline card balances for directly-originated consumer lending where Barclays keeps more of the economics.

Investment bank leadership change. In August 2026 the group named Mike Joo, previously of Bank of America, and Adeel Khan as co-chief executives of the Investment Bank with effect from February 2027. The division has been the focus of the group's efficiency programme, and its cost-to-income ratio and capital allocation are the main levers behind the 2028 return target.

Technology and the cost base. The group cost-to-income ratio fell to 55% in H1 2026 from 58% a year earlier, a reduction management attributes to platform consolidation, automation of servicing and the ongoing simplification of legacy systems. Barclays does not disclose a separate artificial-intelligence investment figure.

8. Competitive Landscape

Barclays competes on two different fields at once. In UK retail and commercial banking its rivals are Lloyds, NatWest and HSBC's UK ring-fenced bank. In global markets and investment banking it competes with the American bulge bracket. Market capitalisations below were checked live on 12 September 2026.

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025 metric
HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L)	£265.9bn	FY2025 profit before tax of US$29.9bn (FY2024: US$32.3bn) and a return on tangible equity of 13.3%, or 17.2% excluding notable items; targeting 17% or better for 2026 to 2028 (HSBC FY2025 annual results media release)
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L)	£64.2bn	FY2025 statutory profit before tax of £6,661m, up 12%, with a return on tangible equity of 12.9% (14.8% excluding the motor finance provision) (Lloyds FY2025 results RNS)
NatWest Group (NWG.L)	£55.4bn	FY2025 profit before tax of £7.7bn, up 24%, with a return on tangible equity of 19.2% against 17.5% in FY2024; new target of above 18% by 2028 (NatWest FY2025 annual results)
Standard Chartered (STAN.L)	£50.1bn	FY2025 record operating income of US$20.9bn and underlying profit before tax of US$7.9bn, with an underlying return on tangible equity of 14.7% — beating its 2024–26 target a year early (Standard Chartered FY2025 press release)

The honest read on those numbers is that Barclays sits mid-table on returns among the UK majors. NatWest and Standard Chartered earned higher returns on tangible equity in FY2025, HSBC is roughly four times larger by market value, and Lloyds is comparable in size but purely domestic. What Barclays has that the others do not is a top-tier global markets business, which is what makes its earnings both more volatile and more geared to a strong capital-markets year.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

C.S. Venkatakrishnan has been Group Chief Executive since November 2021. Anna Cross is Group Finance Director, and Nigel Higgins has chaired the board since 2019 with his tenure extended through 2028. Note that Sir John Kingman chairs Barclays Bank UK PLC, the ring-fenced subsidiary, which is a separate board from the group. Mike Joo and Adeel Khan were named co-chief executives of the Investment Bank in August 2026, effective February 2027.

The following dealings were disclosed through Director/PDMR Shareholding notifications to the London Stock Exchange and in the group's SEC filings during 2026. A "PDMR" is a person discharging managerial responsibilities — a director or senior manager whose share dealings must be disclosed.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Anna Cross (Group Finance Director)	07 Aug 2026	Sale	461,588	~521p average	£2,404,873	Discretionary sale
C.S. Venkatakrishnan (Group CEO)	17 Aug 2026	Gift	208,814	Nil consideration	Nil	Charitable donation
C.S. Venkatakrishnan (Group CEO)	04 Sep 2026	Transfer	1,173,990 ordinary shares plus 217,182 ADSs	Nil consideration	Nil	Transfer to spouse's sole account
Taalib Shaah (Group Chief Risk Officer)	07 May 2026	Purchase	554	431.6p	£2,391	Group Share Incentive Plan

Read carefully, only one of those is an economic decision. The two Venkatakrishnan entries are a charitable gift and an intra-family transfer at nil consideration, neither of which reduces the household's exposure to the shares in the second case. The Cross disposal is a genuine sale. Regular small purchases under the Group Share Incentive Plan continue across the wider senior population.

10. Key Risks

• Motor finance redress (Conduct / litigation): the provision for UK motor finance commission redress stood at £430m at 30 June 2026 and has been increased more than once. The Financial Conduct Authority finalised an industry-wide redress scheme in policy statement PS26/3, but the Upper Tribunal suspended parts of it on 2 July 2026, leaving both the final cost and the timetable unresolved.
• Investment bank earnings volatility (Concentration): at 44.8% of FY2025 income, the Investment Bank is the single largest contributor and the least predictable. A weak year for fixed income, currencies and commodities trading, or a closed primary market, would hit group profit disproportionately.
• Credit quality normalisation (Credit): the loan loss rate rose to 62 basis points in H1 2026 from 52 basis points, including a £228m single-name charge. Exposure spans UK mortgages and cards, US consumer credit and investment-bank counterparties, and impairments have been running below long-run averages.
• Structural hedge roll-off (Interest rate): a significant part of recent net interest income growth is the mechanical re-pricing of a large rolling hedge programme. That benefit is disclosed, quantified and finite, and is expected to recede towards the end of the decade as older positions finish maturing.
• Capital and regulatory change (Regulatory): Basel 3.1 and the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book are due to affect risk-weighted assets from 2027. CET1 sits at 14.3%, the top of the 13–14% target range, so changes that inflate risk-weighted assets would directly compete with the buyback programme for capital.
• UK ring-fencing constraints (Structural): Barclays UK must be held as a separately capitalised, separately governed entity. Capital and liquidity are not freely fungible between the ring-fenced bank and the rest of the group, which limits how efficiently the balance sheet can be deployed.
• Integration and succession execution (Operational): the group is simultaneously integrating Tesco Bank and Best Egg while changing the leadership of its largest division in February 2027. Each is manageable alone; together they raise the chance of something slipping.

11. Recent Developments

• 10 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results and a new 2028 plan. Profit before tax of £9,139m, up 13%, with total income of £29,140m. The board set out targets of above 14% return on tangible equity in 2028 and more than £15bn of capital distributions across 2026 to 2028, and announced £2.5bn of buybacks for the year.
• 24 Apr 2026 — American Airlines card portfolio exit. Barclays completed the sale of its American Airlines co-branded credit card portfolio, releasing £3.6bn of risk-weighted assets and booking a gain of roughly £225m.
• 28 Apr 2026 — Q1 2026 results. Total income of £8,163m, up 6%, profit before tax of £2,814m and earnings per share of 14.1p against 13.0p a year earlier. A £500m buyback was announced and CET1 was 14.1%.
• 01 May 2026 — Best Egg acquisition completed. The group closed its purchase of the US personal-loan originator for about £0.6bn, having announced the deal in October 2025.
• 07 May 2026 — Annual General Meeting. Held at the QEII Centre, Westminster.
• 28 Jul 2026 — H1 2026 results and a raised income target. Total income of £16,501m, up 11%, profit before tax of £6,066m, up 17%, and a return on tangible equity of 14.8%. The 2026 group income target was raised by around £500m to about £31.5bn, an interim dividend of 5.9p was declared and a £1bn buyback announced.
• 07 Aug 2026 — CFO share disposal disclosed. Group Finance Director Anna Cross reported the sale of 461,588 shares for £2.4m.
• 15 Sep 2026 — Interim dividend paid. The 5.9p half-year dividend, with an ex-dividend date of 6 August and a record date of 7 August 2026, reaches shareholders.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 15 Sep 2026 — payment date for the 5.9p interim dividend (ex-dividend 6 August, record date 7 August 2026)
• 22 Oct 2026 — Q3 2026 results announcement, the next scheduled earnings event; watch the buyback announcement that normally accompanies it
• Expected Feb 2027 — FY2026 results, expected to confirm whether the raised group income target of about £31.5bn was met and to set the next buyback tranche (Barclays has not yet published the exact date)
• Expected Feb 2027 — ex-dividend and record dates for the FY2026 final dividend, normally set within two weeks of the full-year results
• Expected 2027 — implementation of Basel 3.1 and the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book in the UK, affecting risk-weighted assets and therefore capital headroom
• TBC — resolution of the Upper Tribunal proceedings that suspended parts of the Financial Conduct Authority's motor finance redress scheme; this determines the final size of the £430m provision

Scheduled macro events that move UK bank share prices — Bank of England rate decisions, UK inflation prints and labour market data — are listed on the ChartsView Economic Calendar. Discussion of UK bank earnings is in the ChartsView Forum.

---

Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.