Barclays third-quarter profit falls

Barclays has reported a fall in third-quarter profits and set aside £560m for more customer refunds and litigation.

The bank said profits before tax not including those settlements dropped 10% to £1.43bn for the July-to-September period.

The result comes a day after the bank confirmed Jes Staley would be joining as its new chief executive.

Barclays said it had seen slow progress with its so-called non-core businesses, which it is selling.

Losses for the package of businesses, which includes some investment bank assets and parts of the European retail banking operation, more than doubled to £337m.

Barclays provided £270m to settle claims in the US over mortgage bonds and £290m to compensate clients over bad foreign exchange rates.

For the businesses the bank plans to keep, including its UK High Street bank and Barclaycard, profit rose 1% to £1.76bn.

Including the £560m hit, and other costs and gains the bank considers to be one-offs, third-quarter profit before tax fell to £861m from £1.22bn a year ago.

Revenues dipped to £6.1bn from £6.4bn for the June-to-September period.

Jes Staley currently works for a US hedge fund

New chief

On Wednesday, Barclays announced that Mr Staley will be joining the bank as its new chief in December.

Mr Staley currently works for US hedge fund Blue Mountain Capital Management, and previously has worked for JP Morgan.

Barclays' previous chief executive, Antony Jenkins, was fired in July after falling out with board members.

Mr Staley will be paid £1.2m in salary, £396,000 in pension contributions and as much as £5.5m a year in bonuses, which will mostly be paid in shares. He will also receive £1.15m in shares per year that he will have to keep for five years before cashing in. That is a total of £8.2m for the year, if he is awarded the maximum bonus.

He will also receive shares in Barclays worth about £1.93m to replace shares in JPMorgan he will lose for leaving his former employer.

In a letter to staff on Wednesday, Mr Staley indicated he would focus on areas of investment banking that did not require as much capital - the buffer of reserves it keeps to protect it from unexpected losses. Analysts said this could include such areas as merger advice and trading in stocks.