Barclays Posts Higher Profit on Top-Line Growth

By Elena Vardon

Barclays reported a rise in profit for the first quarter of 2026 on growth across most of its businesses and confirmed its annual and midterm targets.

The British bank on Tuesday posted a pretax profit of 2.81 billion pounds ($3.81 billion) for the three-month period, which was 3% higher than a year prior but slightly lower than the 2.83 billion-pound estimate from a company-compiled consensus.

The group's revenue came in at 8.16 billion pounds, slightly ahead of expectations of 8.12 billion pounds. It said the 6% on-year increase was driven by higher net interest income--what it earns on loans minus what it pays out on client deposits--thanks to loan growth and the hedging mechanisms in place to mitigate the impact of interest-rates moves, as well as higher fees from its global markets and investment banking divisions.

Barclays also set aside 823 million pounds to cover bad loans in the quarter, including a 228 million-pound charge driven by a single name in the investment bank.

"The breadth and quality of our businesses mean we remain confident in delivering all our financial targets across a range of environments," Chief Executive C. S. Venkatakrishnan said.

The bank intends to start buying back up to 500 million pounds of its own shares once its current 1 billion-pound program completes, it added.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 28, 2026 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)