Barclays Upbeat on Outlook as Bank Moves to Quarterly Buybacks

By Elena Vardon

Barclays raised its guidance for the year thanks to a stable income outlook and quicker savings despite topping up its provision for a car-loan probe redress, and also announced a buyback program as it reported third-quarter results.

The British bank said Wednesday that it now expects its return on tangible equity for 2025 to be greater than 11%--compared with around 11% previously--after reporting a 10.6% RoTE for the third quarter.

The group also increased its guidance for net interest income--the difference between what banks earn on loans and what they pay clients for deposits--to more than 12.6 billion pounds ($16.84 billion) compared with greater than 12.5 billion pounds previously. This excludes its investment bank and head office.

Chief Executive C. S. Venkatakrishnan said he is pleased with the momentum of the bank's financial performance. "We have decided to bring forward a portion of our full-year distribution plans, with a 500 million-pound share buyback announced [Wednesday] and we now plan to move to quarterly share-buyback announcements," he said.

Like its peers who are exposed to a U.K. car-finance probe, Barclays is setting aside more money to cover the cost of a compensation program on historical commissions paid by customers. The bank booked a 235 million pounds charge in its third-quarter results, bringing its existing provision for the matter to 325 million pounds.

Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 22, 2025 02:56 ET (06:56 GMT)