Strategy
Barclays To Exit Gibraltar As It Shrinks Global Footprint
The UK-listed bank is to shut its remaining office in the British Overseas Territory.
Barclays’ move to focus on its domestic UK market continues, with media reporting that it is to shut its remaining office in Gibraltar, ending its physical presence in the British Overseas Territory and military base after 127 years. The bank’s geographical shrinkage has also seen it reduce business coverage in a number of jurisdictions.
According to the Gibraltar Chronicle, a local publication, 16 locally-resident employees will lose their jobs.
This publication has contacted Barclays about the matter and may update in due course.
The report said Barclays’ exit had been widely anticipated and will have little practical impact on local consumers because the bank had already wound down the parts of its business that dealt with the Gibraltar market.
Gibraltar’s authorities have recently urged British voters to choose to stay in the European Union rather than opt for “Brexit” (Gibraltar is a member of the EU and would have to leave in the event of a Brexit vote). The Barclays wind-down is thought to be unconnected to this issue but part of a broader restructuring by the bank of its geographic footprint.
Among recent developments, the bank has sold Hong Kong and Singapore wealth businesses to OCBC (see here), spun off its US private banking firm (see here), moved to cut back its Africa presence (see here), and cut coverage in markets such as Cyprus and Malta (see here). Like some of its peers, the bank has had to slash its investment bank risk exposure in recent years and been hit by some regulatory fines, such as over LIBOR manipulation, and consequently had to cut costs.
Barclays will continue to serve its customers and clients based in Gibraltar and Cyprus with a product offering serviced out of the UK.
In its 2015 full-year results, the bank said that total income, net of insurance claims, was £24.528 billion on an adjusted basis, down 5 per cent; pre-tax profit, adjusted, was £5.403 billion in 2015, down by 2 per cent. The total cost/income ratio was 69 per cent at the end of last year, down from 70 per cent in 2014.
