Barclays PLC
Annual Report 2017
Positioned for growth,  
sharing and success


Barclays PLC Strategic Report 2017
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2  Barclays PLC Annual Report 2017
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Where we can find out more
About this report
Barclays PLC Annual Report was approved by the Board of 
Directors on 21 February 2018 and signed on its behalf by 
the Chairman.
Details on how to obtain a copy of the full Barclays PLC 
Annual Report 2017 can be found in the Shareholder 
information section.
Notes, Non-IFRS performance measures and forward-
looking statements
Barclays management believes that the non-IFRS 
performance measures included in this document provide 
valuable information to the readers of the financial 
statements. This document also contains certain 
forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 
21E of the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as 
amended, and Section 27A of the US Securities Act of 
1933, as amended, with respect to the Group. For further 
details on Notes, non-IFRS performance measures, and 
forward-looking statements used within this document, 
please see the back cover.
Report of the Auditor 
The Auditor’s report on the full accounts for the year ended 
31 December 2017 was unqualified, and their statement 
under section 496 (whether the Strategic Report and the 
Directors’ report are consistent with the accounts) of the 
Companies Act 2006 was unqualified.
Approach to non-financial performance reporting
We note the requirements under the provisions of 
the Companies Act 2006, relating to the preparation 
of the Strategic Report which have been amended by 
the Companies, Partnerships and Groups (Accounts 
and Non-Financial Reporting) Regulations 2016, which 
implements EU Directive 2014/95/EU (on non-financial 
and diversity information). As a result of these changes, 
we have integrated the information required for a 
Non-Financial Information Statement into the Strategic 
Report, thereby promoting cohesive reporting of 
non-financial matters.
Strategic 
Report
An overview of  
the business
Country 
Snapshot
Our tax 
contributions
Pillar 3 
Report
Our Risk profile 
and how we 
manage it
Barclays PLC 
Annual Report
Our Governance,  
our Risks and our 
Financials
Environmental 
Social 
Governance 
Report
Our shared growth 
ambition
You can learn about Barclays’ strategy,  
our businesses and performance, approach  
to governance and risk online, where latest  
and archived Annual and Strategic Reports  
are available to view or download. 
For further information and a fuller 
understanding of the results and the 
state of affairs of the Group, please refer to the  
full Barclays PLC Annual Report 2017 suite of 
documents at home.barclays/annualreport


Strategic framework
02	
Chairman’s letter
04	 Chief Executive’s review 
06	 Operating environment
08	 Business structure
09	 Our business model
10	
Our strategy
12	
Risk management
15	
Key performance indicators
A review of our performance
23	 Barclays UK
26	 Personal Banking
27	 Barclaycard Consumer UK
28	 Wealth, Entrepreneurs and 
Business Banking
29	 Barclays International
32	
Corporate and Investment Bank
33	 Consumer, Cards and Payments
35 Head Office and Group Service 
Company
An overview of governance and  
financial performance
36	 Our people and culture
38	 Governance compliance
40	 Viability statement
Governance
43	 Governance contents
44	 Directors’ report
89	 People
93	
Remuneration report
Risk review
117	 Risk review contents
119	 Risk management
121	 Material existing and emerging risks
127	 Principal Risk management
138	 Risk performance
197	 Supervision and regulation
Financial review
205	 Financial review contents
206	 Key performance indicators
208	 Consolidated summary income 
statement
209	 Income statement commentary
210	 Consolidated summary balance sheet
211	 Balance sheet commentary
212	 Analysis of results by business
223	 Non-IFRS performance measures
Financial statements
227	 Financial statements contents
234	 Consolidated financial statements
241	 Notes to the financial statements
323	 Shareholder information
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Barclays PLC Annual Report 2017  01
Governance
Risk review
Financial review
Financial statements
Shareholder information
Strategic report
The Strategic Report
An overview of our 2017 performance,  
a focus on our strategic direction, and  
a review of the businesses underpinning  
our strategy.
The Detailed Report
Within the Annual Report, these disclosures  
inform of Barclays 2017 performance. The content  
meets, and where insightful, goes beyond minimal  
regulatory reporting standards.


02  Barclays PLC Annual Report 2017
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Dear Fellow Shareholders
Chairman’s letter
As I indicated last year, Barclays is one of the 
largest restructuring situations in bank history. 
While this was partly a consequence of the 
Global Financial Crisis, it was also partly 
a consequence of the doubling of the 
balance sheet and the seven-fold increase 
in derivatives across 2007 and 2008, 
immediately prior to the full onset of the 
Global Financial Crisis. 
This, together with the subsequent 
designation of the Group as globally systemic, 
and the consequent more than doubling of 
minimum regulatory capital ratios, meant the 
need substantially to re-capitalise the Group, 
and resulted in a considerable proportion 
of our portfolio becoming economically 
non-viable in the post-crisis environment.
The consequent recapitalisation involved the 
urgent raising of capital in 2008 (now the 
subject of charges by the Serious Fraud 
Office), a substantial reduction in capital 
and balance sheet usage, and the disposal 
of a considerable portion of our 
international network. 
Since the crisis, we have refocused the 
business, halving the balance sheet by 
£1trn and the staff by some 80,000, through 
the disposal of Non-Core assets. We are also 
creating a new UK ring-fenced bank from 
scratch, resolving and continuing to resolve 
multiple large legacy conduct matters, as well 
as preparing the Group for Brexit.
The enormous impact all of this has had on 
the business, the Board and management, is 
a sobering lesson. 
Over the past six years, reasonable underlying 
operating profits have been fully eroded in the 
process. Over this period, we saw £15.1bn in 
litigation and conduct charges, £2.4bn in bank 
levies, £10.1bn in losses from Non-Core, a 
£2.5bn loss from the sell down of Barclays 
Africa, and £7.1bn in taxes (at an average rate 
of 65%). All of this, totalling £35.6bn over the 
six years, resulted in an aggregate attributable 
loss of £1.0bn over the same period. Imagine 
if all the underlying profits had gone to 
shareholders and to investment in growth.
Clearly, shareholders would prefer we declared 
higher dividends, but it should be remembered 
over the same period, we paid £5bn in dividends 
out of negative attributable profits.
While a number of challenges remain, the launch of the ring-
fenced bank expected at the beginning of April this year largely 
draws a line on large-scale restructuring, and we look forward 
to a more traditional business pattern, including the return to 
a more normal dividend pattern.


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Barclays PLC Annual Report 2017  03
Governance
Risk review
Financial review
Financial statements
Shareholder information
Strategic report
While the bulk of our historical challenges are 
behind us, we do continue to face some 
residual challenges. These include the 
historical residential mortgage backed 
securities matter in the US, the Serious Fraud 
Office prosecution in the UK as well as the 
consequence of Brexit. This said, depending 
on their scale and pacing, we believe we have 
the capacity to deal with them over time.
So, while a number of challenges remain, the 
launch of the ring-fenced bank Barclays UK 
expected at the beginning of April this 
year largely draws a line on large-scale 
restructuring. We look forward to a more 
traditional business pattern, including the 
return to a more normal dividend pattern, 
planned to begin with the 2018 financial year.
Turning to the 2017 financial year itself, this 
was another critical year for Barclays. Good 
progress was made on a significant number of 
fronts. The closure of the Non-Core business 
from the start of July marked a significant 
milestone. This business was formed in 2014 
in order to deliver the divestment of our 
non-strategic assets and businesses, releasing 
capital to support strategic growth in our Core 
business and to strengthen the Group’s capital 
position. At its peak, the business comprised 
approximately £121bn of risk weighted assets 
(RWAs), representing 28% of the Group’s total 
at the time and it has been a significant 
achievement to reduce this to just c.£23bn by 
the time of its closure. 
We also implemented the difficult decision to 
sell down our shareholding in Barclays Africa 
in 2017. The changing regulatory requirements 
for global banks resulted in higher hurdles, 
making the ownership of the profitable 
African business uneconomic. Therefore, 
we successfully sold down 33.7% of our 
remaining Barclays Africa Group Limited 
(BAGL) shareholding in the first half of the 
year. We now own a residual 14.9% of the 
issued share capital, consistent with 
regulatory commitments. 
2017 also saw us make significant progress in 
terms of creating the new ring-fenced bank as 
required by UK legislation. This has been an 
enormous undertaking as we are in effect 
creating a new bank comprising some 
24 million customers. We remain on track to 
set up this bank in the second quarter of 2018. 
As part of our structural reform requirements 
a Group Service Company has been 
successfully established which provides a 
wide range of operations, technology and 
functional services to the Group as a whole.
We continued with our Brexit preparations to 
ensure that Barclays can preserve our access 
to the EU markets for our customers and 
clients. Barclays Bank Ireland, where we have a 
banking license and have operated for nearly 
40 years, will provide us with a natural base 
from which we can continue to provide 
products and services which require an EU 
presence.
As shareholders are aware, during 2017 
Barclays disclosed a whistleblowing incident 
involving allegations made in connection with 
the hiring of a senior management team 
member. After an internal investigation, the 
Board determined that CEO Jes Staley 
believed, mistakenly but in good faith, that it 
was permissible to identify the author. A 
detailed announcement on the issue was 
made in April and the matter is now the 
subject of an external investigation.
Despite the very significant achievements and 
milestones passed during the year, our 
financial performance in 2017 highlights that 
further progress is required to deliver 
acceptable returns to our shareholders. Profit 
before tax was £3.5bn, and although this was 
a 10% increase on prior year, return on 
tangible equity was a negative 3.6% on a 
statutory basis. Excluding litigation and 
conduct, the loss on sale of our BAGL stake 
and a remeasurement of DTAs, largely from 
US tax reform, return on tangible equity 
was 5.6%.
Fortunately, the losses we experienced last 
year from Non-Core, as well as the costs of 
structural reform, are unlikely to be repeated 
going forward, and this, together with the 
profit improvement programme in the core 
business, should contribute towards 
improving returns.
Accordingly, the focus of management and 
the Board’s attention is on performance, 
particularly that of the Corporate and 
Investment Bank in Barclays International. 
There, performance in Markets, and in 
particular Macro and Equities, was weak, driven 
by difficult market conditions. There have been 
significant management changes and action is 
being taken to improve profitability in this area.
Barclays Consumer, Cards and Payments saw 
profits decline by 22% but still produced a 
respectable 16.7% return on tangible equity. 
Barclays UK’s profits were marginally up on 
the previous year generating 9.8% return on 
tangible equity.
Share price performance in 2017 was 
disappointing, with the share price falling 
from 223p to 203p over the calendar year. We 
are working to reverse this in 2018. Delivering 
quality earnings above the cost of equity as 
well as returning to higher dividend levels, are 
necessary to generate a meaningful recovery 
in the share price. This is the priority for 2018 
and beyond.
The ultimate resolution of legacy conduct and 
litigation issues will allow underlying profit 
to fall to the bottom line to the benefit of 
shareholders. This, together with the 
resolution of the whistleblowing issue, will 
also help remove some uncertainty which is 
overshadowing the Company. 
The past few years have been a really tough 
period for the Board and management, and 
bottom line results can obscure the real 
underlying progress that is being made. I 
would therefore like to thank the Board, the 
management team and all our staff for the 
enormous efforts they are making to secure 
our recovery. 
Finally, I would thank shareholders for their 
patience, and believe it will be rewarded. The 
situation is more complex and difficult than 
we had envisaged, and is taking longer than 
we hoped, but shareholders can rest assured 
that we will continue to strive to deliver the 
performance and value creation that their 
patience deserves.
John McFarlane
Chairman