Barclays job cuts

Britain's Barclays Bank is planning to cut more than 30,000 jobs over the next two years, a newspaper report says.

"The Times" says the wave of redundancies could cause the underperforming lender's workforce to drop below 100,000 as part of an accelerated cost-cutting program. It said the cuts would likely take their largest toll on staff at middle and back office operations, where the largest savings would be possible.

The move comes in the wake of the surprise ouster of its Chief Executive Antony Jenkins earlier this month. Jenkins ran Barclays after it emerged from the Libor rate-fixing scandal three years ago.

In 2014 he cut 19,000 jobs at the bank, but quarreled with the board about the pace of cost-cutting moves and the scope of Barclays' investment-banking business.

Jenkins has been temporarily replaced by the bank's new chairman John McFarlane, who had previously been responsible for a radical shakeup of British insurance giant Aviva. He has called for more drastic moves to increase profitability and double Barclays' share price. The bank is continuing to search for a permanent replacement.

Barclays is one of Britain's best-known High Street banks. The 300-year-old institution is credited with introducing Britain's first credit card in 1966, and the world's first ATM the following year.

It avoided nationalization in the wake of the world financial crisis on 2008, but has struggled in recent years following heavy losses and a series of scandals. In late April, the bank reported a sharp decline in first-quarter profits due to significant foreign-exchange provisions.

sgb/hg (dpa,Reuters)