Barclays profit up as bad debt costs fall

LONDON: Barclays reported a 5 per cent rise in underlying quarterly profit as lower charges for bad debt at the British bank offset a third consecutive sharp fall in investment banking revenues as the euro zone financial crisis deepened.

Barclays said on Monday it did not intend to raise any equity capital.

It said pretax profit in the three months to end-September was 2.4 billion pounds ($3.9 billionm). Stripping out a gain on the value of its own debt and other one-off items, profit was 1.34 billion pounds, up 5 per cent on the 2010 period.

Top-line income at Barclays Capital, the investment bank arm that provides the bulk of the bank's profit, fell to 2.25 billion pounds, down from 22 per cent from the second quarter to be in line with the consensus forecast as capital markets activity has been hit hard across the industry.