British bank Barclays said profits jumped 15 per cent to a record last year as its investment banking and fund management income leapt.
Barclays reported today a pretax profit of £5.28 billion for 2005, up from £4.58 billion in 2004.
Barclays, the first major UK-listed bank to report 2005 results, said profits at its investment bank arm Barclays Capital jumped 25 per cent to £1.27 billion.
Rapid growth at BarCap has driven profits in recent years, and Bob Diamond, head of the investment bank arm, said last month he expected 15 to 20 per cent growth over the next couple of years.
Profits in the UK banking division showed more modest growth of 8 per cent, to £2.46 billion. Barclays said the unit's costs as a percentage of income fell by 3 percentage points, beating its target of a 2-percentage-point improvement.
Barclays is attempting to revive its core British retail bank, but it suffered a setback in December when the head of the unit resigned less than a year after unveiling a three-year turnaround plan.
Barclays said group bad debt charges jumped 44 per cent last year to £1.57 billion, in line with analysts' expectations. The bank said the jump reflected some large one-off recoveries in 2004 and acquisitions last year, and the underlying impairment charge rise was 24 per cent.
Barclaycard profits fell 19 per cent to £687 million, hit by a big rise in bad debt charges for UK credit cards and higher costs.