Full Year 2017 Results
Barclays has published its 2017 Full Year Results.
Jes Staley, Group CEO said: "2017 was a year of considerable strategic progress for Barclays. The sell down of our shareholding in Barclays Africa, closure of our Non-Core unit, the establishment of our Service Company, and the creation of our UK ring-fenced bank, mean that, in terms of size and structure, we are now the diversified Transatlantic Consumer and Wholesale bank we set out in our strategy in March 2016.
We have a portfolio of profitable businesses, producing significant earnings, and have plans and investments in place to grow those earnings over time.
We have already started to see some of the benefits of our work in 2017.
Group profit before tax increased 10% year-on-year as a result of our team’s focus on execution. Barclays UK navigated the year well, reaching a digital banking milestone with our ten millionth customer. Within Barclays International, we increased Banking fee share in our Corporate and Investment Bank in 2017, and our Consumer, Cards and Payments business continued to produce very strong income while managing risk effectively.
Although we are only seven weeks into the first quarter, and it is too early to offer formal guidance, we are pleased with the start to the year, and in particular in the markets businesses in CIB, where income is tracking above the level for the corresponding period in 2017 in dollars, and also in sterling, despite the weaker dollar we are currently experiencing.
Critically, as we have carried out the work to reshape the business, we have continued to generate capital organically. Our CET1 ratio today stands at 13.3%, comfortably within our end-state target range.
While we still have a number of legacy conduct issues to address, I am confident in the capacity of this business to generate excess capital going forward, and it remains our intention over time to return a greater proportion of that excess capital to shareholders through dividends, and other means of capital distribution, including share buybacks.
As a first demonstration of that intent, we are pleased to be able to announce today the restoration of the dividend to six and a half pence for 2018."