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DATE

Oct. 22, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Group Chief Executive - Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan
• Group Finance Director - Anna Cross

TAKEAWAYS

• Total Income -- GBP 7.4 billion, representing 3% growth year over year.
• Profit Before Tax -- GBP 2.3 billion, an increase of 12% reflecting operational efficiency.
• Return on Tangible Equity -- 11.7% for the quarter, compared to 10.6% in the third quarter of 2025.
• Earnings Per Share -- 12.3p, up 18% versus the prior year period.
• Shareholder Distributions -- GBP 500 million for a new share buyback, bringing year-to-date distributions to GBP 2.8 billion.
• Group Net Interest Income -- GBP 3.9 billion, an increase of 4% year over year driven by structural hedge income.
• Cost-Income Ratio -- 62% for the third quarter, compared to 63% in the same period last year.
• Equities Income -- GBP 1.5 billion, increasing 47% year over year due to investments in equity derivatives and prime financing.
• U.K. Corporate Bank Lending -- Grew 13% year over year, excluding the run-off portfolio.
• Total U.K. Lending -- Grew 7% year over year, consistent with a growth target of more than 5% from 2025 to 2028.
• Efficiency Savings Target -- More than GBP 1.1 billion in 2027, driven by technological transformation and automation.
• Staff Reduction -- Approximately 5,000 full-time employees, with 60% of the impact occurring in support functions.
• Pillar 2A Requirement -- Expected to reduce by 59 basis points, which management indicated would lower the maximum distributable amount threshold to 11.6%.
• U.S. Consumer Bank Deposits -- $26.6 billion, representing a 53% increase since 2023.
• Credit Impairment Charges -- GBP 503 million, down 20% year over year with a loan loss rate of 43 basis points.
• Structural Hedge Income -- Management noted that income is likely to grow until at least 2030, supported by the quality of U.K. deposits.
• Assets Under Management -- Grew 10% year over year in the Private Bank and Wealth Management segment.
• Tesco Bank Synergies -- GBP 0.2 billion in cost synergies expected, with the majority split between 2027 and 2028.
• Common Equity Tier 1 Ratio -- 14.2%, which is at the top of the 13% to 14% target range.

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RISKS

• Venkatakrishnan stated, "I am pleased to see the continued results of our investment in the equities franchise in the Investment Bank. Their strong revenues this quarter have helped balance the somewhat disappointing results from fixed income intermediation," regarding segment performance.
• Cross noted that higher benchmark rates continued to weigh on market-wide pricing of consumer loans distributed through Best Egg, resulting in a GBP 20 million non-net interest income headwind.
• Cross stated, "Given the legal challenges, the legal and regulatory outcomes and the nature, extent and timing of any remediation action, remain uncertain," regarding the motor finance provision.

SUMMARY

Barclays PLC (BCS -1.04%) reported a 3% increase in third-quarter income and an 11.7% return on tangible equity, maintaining its trajectory toward 2026 financial targets. Management stated that the company is transitioning from its initial three-year strategic plan to a second phase focused on operational efficiency through technological transformation and the deployment of artificial intelligence. The company reported strength in its U.K. retail and corporate franchises, alongside significant growth in its equities business, which offset weaker performance in fixed income intermediation. Financial results were supported by a robust capital position, allowing for the announcement of a new GBP 500 million share buyback and bringing total year-to-date distributions to GBP 2.8 billion.

• The company is accelerating its cost-efficiency program, targeting statutory costs of approximately GBP 18.4 billion in 2027.
• Venkatakrishnan indicated that the U.K. corporate franchise has been resegmented to focus on capital allocation and technology, with iPortal adoption expected to reach 100% of clients by the end of 2026.
• The structural hedge remains a primary driver of predictable growth, with Cross noting that average swap rates of 4.2% year to date exceeded the 3.5% planning assumption.
• In the Investment Bank, the business mix is shifting toward equities, which now account for 45% of year-to-date markets revenue compared to 32% in 2023.
• Management noted that technology investments in the mortgage broker platform reduced application times from 45 minutes to less than 15 minutes.
• The company received greater regulatory clarity regarding Pillar 2A requirements, which Cross stated will provide increased capital flexibility for future shareholder distributions.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• RoTE: Return on Tangible Equity, a measure of profitability that excludes intangible assets and goodwill.
• CET1 Ratio: Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, a key measure of a bank's capital strength and regulatory solvency.
• NII: Net Interest Income, the difference between the interest income earned on assets and the interest expense paid on liabilities.
• MDA: Maximum Distributable Amount, the threshold below which a bank must restrict capital distributions.
• Structural Hedge: A risk management technique used by banks to stabilize earnings by hedging the interest rate sensitivity of stable deposit balances.
• iPortal: A digital access platform used by Barclays corporate banking clients to manage their holistic banking relationship.
• RWAs: Risk Weighted Assets, a bank's assets weighted according to their risk level to determine the minimum amount of capital required.
• FICC: Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities, a division of the investment bank involved in trading and intermediation.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Welcome to Barclays' Q3 2026 results analyst and investor conference call. I will now hand over to C.S. Venkatakrishnan, Group Chief Executive, before I hand over to Anna Cross, Group Finance Director.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Good morning, and thank you for joining the Barclays results call for the third quarter of 2026. In this call, and in our full year results discussion in February 2027, we will supplement our usual discussion with two features. First, we will explain the benefits of the investments which we have made to date, and which are delivering the results that we expected. Second, we will provide greater insight into the components of our cost profile and trajectory. This will illustrate the operational efficiency which we are driving for, particularly from technology, and it will show our future ambitions.

I will commence with a brief review of results, followed by a detailed discussion from Anna, and then return to these two features. I am pleased with our year-to-date performance, and I am confident in achieving our primary financial targets. Our income in the third quarter was GBP 7.4 billion, up 3% year-on-year, and we reduced the cost income ratio to 62% for the quarter and 57% year-to-date. We grew profit before tax in the quarter by 12% to GBP 2.3 billion, and we delivered an RoTE of 11.7% in the quarter and 13.8% year-to-date. Given our returns and our robust CET1 ratio of 14.2%, we are announcing a GBP 500 million share buyback.

This brings year-to-date distributions to GBP 2.8 billion, up 47% from the same period last year. Our earnings per share is up 18% year-on-year for the third quarter and on track for a third consecutive year of 20% growth in EPS. We remain very confident in achieving the group RoTE target of greater than 12% this year, having achieved 12.4% in the last 12 months. Let me share four main reflections on this quarter. First, the investment that we have made in and the repositioning of our U.K. retail and corporate franchises is driving above market growth. All three businesses had an RoTE of greater than 20% in the third quarter.

Second, I am pleased to see the continued results of our investment in the equities franchise in the Investment Bank. Their strong revenues this quarter have helped balance the somewhat disappointing results from fixed income intermediation. Third, increased regulatory clarity is providing us with greater capital flexibility, and we will update on our expected CET1 operating level at the full year results. Finally, as I will discuss later, multi-year investments in our businesses are delivering consistent returns and growth. This is the alpha we are creating. Including these investments, we are going to provide you with a clear path for absolute cost and efficiency savings in 2027. I will return to this at the end.

First, however, Anna will take you through the financials in detail. Over to you, Anna.

Anna Cross: Thank you, Venkat, and good morning, everyone. With one quarter left in the original three-year plan, we are confident in delivering all group targets. As I take you through our results, I will focus more than usual on costs. Starting, though, with income. Group income grew 3% year-on-year in Q3, on track for the circa GBP 31.5 billion target in 2026. This implies full year growth of circa 8% versus the more than 5% CAGR target to 2028. We are building more consistent returns by growing stable income streams. These now cover 125% of group costs versus around 100% before 2024, having grown for six consecutive years.

This is underpinned by group NII, which has been around 50% of total income consistently since 2023. We are confident in delivering the 2026 group NII target, with 7% year-on-year growth in Q3. We expect NII growth to continue, underpinned by two levers. First, the quality of deposits, particularly in the U.K. These support structural hedge income growth until at least 2030, as I will discuss later. Second, ongoing lending momentum. Starting with U.K. deposits. Around 80% of group deposits come from U.K. clients, including in Private Bank and Wealth Management and the International Corporate Bank. We bring these together for the first time on the left, with total deposits up 3% year-on-year.

Barclays UK retail deposits also grew 3%, as shown on the top right. Current account customers hold around 90% of Barclays branded U.K. retail deposits, with current account balances stable since 2024, as we show on slide 37 in the appendix. Given our strong funding positions, we take a relationship-led approach to savings, with Premier accounting for 90% of Barclays brand ISA growth year to date. Retail deposits are only one part of the story. The bottom right now shows the corresponding spread to the U.K. corporate deposits. We are the U.K.'s largest corporate bank, with GBP 220 billion of deposits across three divisions, Barclays UK, UK Corporate Bank, and ICB in the Investment Bank.

These have grown 4% year on year. Current accounts are stable and support deep relationships with around 80% of UK Corporate Bank clients banking with us for more than five years. The breadth and quality underpin the structural hedge shown on the next slide. The structural hedge provides stable income and predictable growth for all divisions. Average swap rates of 4.2% year to date exceed the 3.5% planning assumption, supporting additional NII in future years. Given prevailing and expected swap rates, hedge income is likely to grow until at least 2030, as you can see from the updated maturing yield disclosure on the left. Whilst higher rates undoubtedly help structural hedge income, we are also diversifying NII by growing lending.

Total U.K. lending grew by 7%, consistent with a more than 5% target from 2025 to 2028. With one quarter to go, we have deployed GBP 28 billion of U.K. business growth RWAs towards the circa GBP 30 billion target for the three years to 2026. Mortgages grew by 7% year on year with GBP 11 billion of gross lending in the quarter. Corporate and business banking lending grew 13% year on year, excluding the run-off portfolio. Above-market growth in UK Corporate Bank reflects investments since 2023, helping to attract 1,500 new clients with around 40% borrowing from us. More on this from Venkat later.

In summary, our progress in both deposits and lending is driven and sustained by investment in the business in both service and capabilities. Moving on to costs. When we think about costs, we distinguish running the bank from investing in the future. In running the bank, we aim to drive as much operational leverage as possible by delivering gross efficiencies to offset costs from business growth, inflation, and BAU investment. We distinguish this from strategic investment to increased returns. Run the bank costs have increased by GBP 3.3 billion, of which GBP 0.2 billion relates to the acquisition of Best Egg and GoHenry. Put differently, gross efficiencies have meaningfully offset additional costs from business growth, inflation, and BAU investments.

This is despite GBP 0.3 billion of additional performance costs given 8% year-to-date income growth in the Investment Bank versus the low single-digit target. We also increased investment by GBP 0.2 billion year on year to harmonize systems and processes and growing fee businesses. This results in exit rate costs of circa GBP 18 billion for 2026. As outlined last quarter, we are also deliberately spending an additional GBP 0.3 billion in H2 to structurally reduce costs supported by technology deployment. Inclusive of this, the Q1 motor finance provision and the change to material risk-takers compensation mix, we expect circa GBP 18.5 billion of costs in 2026. This is consistent with the high 50s cost-income ratio target.

We said in February that costs would grow modestly from 2025 to 2028, and the group would deliver positive operating jaws each year. These expectations are fully intact based on statutory total costs. So what drives this? For the group, we expect run the bank costs to be flat or lower in 2027 versus 2026, reflecting higher anticipated gross efficiencies. This creates capacity for GBP 0.4 billion of planned additional investment within our modest cost growth guidance. In absolute terms, we expect statutory costs to fall to circa GBP 18.4 billion in 2027. Cost income ratio remains our north star, so we would expect to flex business growth costs to the extent that income is higher or lower than expectations.

As a result, we are confident in making meaningful progress next year towards the low 50s cost income ratio target in 2028 from high 50s ratio this year. Our confidence in delivering these commitments is underpinned by the generation of cost efficiencies. In the past two years, we have delivered around GBP 0.7 billion of gross efficiency savings annually, facilitated by GBP 0.3 billion of SCAs in the prior year, driving positive operating jaws each year. This was our planning assumption for 2026 to 2028. Having increased this for 2026 alone, we expect more than GBP 1.1 billion of gross efficiency savings in 2027. These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5,000 full-time employees.

Around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including fewer developers as AI makes our people more productive. Nowhere in the Bank is this more relevant than in Barclays UK, where we have taken more structural cost actions than planned in 2026. Whilst this acceleration means I no longer expect Barclays UK costs to fall in 2026 versus 2025, we are more confident in reducing 2027 and 2028 below the 2025 level. This is enabled by improved customer-facing technology, which has reduced call center volumes by 10% in the past year, while technology improvements within call centers have increased colleague productivity.

Changes to the branch staffing model have also reduced employees per branch by around 10% in the past year, with colleagues focusing on higher value support. Following the successful integration of Tesco Bank, circa GBP 0.2 billion of cost synergies are flowing through, with a majority split broadly evenly between 2027 and 2028. In 2027, we expect a high 40s cost-to-income ratio before falling to mid-40s in 2028. Turning to impairment. Consumer and corporate balance sheets remain robust and borrowers are behaving rationally with a year-to-date loan loss rate of 55 basis points. The Barclays UK loan loss rate of 20 basis points benefited from a Tesco Bank debt sale and should normalize towards circa 30 basis points in Q4.

Whilst in US Consumer Bank, 90-day delinquencies fell further, as shown on appendix slide 45. We expect a seasonally higher reserve build and loan loss rate in Q4 given card spending. Given this, and a 552 basis point year-to-date loan loss rate, we still expect circa 550 basis points for the full year. Turning to Barclays UK. RoTE was 21.2% in Q3 and income grew by 4%. Costs increased 6%, driven entirely by GBP 110 million of SCAs, reflecting the accelerated actions I discussed earlier. NII increased 6% year-on-year and 4% versus Q2 to GBP 2.1 billion. Structural hedge momentum was complemented by positive product margin effects as guided at Q2.

This reflected dissipating mortgage margin headwinds, card seasonality, and day counts. We still expect full year NII around the middle of the GBP 8.1 billion-GBP 8.3 billion range as guided last quarter. An increase in the structural hedge in early October will lead to a negative Q4 product margin movement offset by higher hedge income with no material net effect. Moving to UK Corporate Bank. Q3 RoTE was 23.5% and 21.6% year-to-date. Income and costs both increased 10%. We grew NII by 14%, driven by structural hedge income and volume growth. As outlined earlier, lending grew by 14% and deposits by 1%, supported by improved propositions, and the loan-to-deposit ratio was 38%, up 4 percentage points year-on-year.

Moving to Private Bank and Wealth Management. Q3 RoTE was 23.8% and 25.4% year-to-date. Client assets and liabilities grew 6% year-on-year and AUM 10%. This included GBP 2.5 billion of net new AUM year-to-date, including GBP 0.6 billion in Q3. The Private Bank has driven most of the client asset and liability growth in the past three years. Part of the investment I outlined earlier will drive additional scale in U.K. wealth, including through advisor recruitment and recently launched marketing. These investments increased costs 7% quarter-on-quarter, and we expect a similar increase into Q4. Moving to the Investment Bank. Q3 RoTE was 9.5% and 13.5% year-to-date.

Income was broadly flat year-on-year with higher RWAs, reducing income to average RWAs by 20 basis points to 6.1%. With the Investment Banking loan book review now largely complete, we deployed additional RWAs to support deal activity, including in the U.K. This will generate income in future quarters. Costs increased GBP 72 million, driven entirely by GBP 112 million of SCAs and changes to material risk takers' compensation mix. We expect Q4 MRT costs to be similar to the Q3 level of GBP 55 million. Including all H2 costs, we remain focused on delivering a circa 12% RoTE and positive operating jaws in 2026, having delivered 2% positive jaws year to date.

In U.S. dollar terms, markets income increased 4% year on year. Benefiting from past investments, equities increased 47% and accounted for half of Q3 markets income. Equity derivatives were particularly strong, and we grew prime, supporting 8% year-on-year financing growth. This offset weaker FICC intermediation with lower client activity in rates and credit in the second half of the quarter and further adversity in September given macro movements. Investment Banking fees increased 2%. Strong activity in advisory and ECM offset lower DCM fees, reflecting deliberate risk and return decisions in a smaller, leveraged finance wallet. M&A and ECM pipelines remain strong.

Lower ICB income reflected GBP 39 million of leveraged finance marks and higher hedging costs in the corporate lending line. Transaction banking income grew 9% year on year, reflecting deposit and fee growth, particularly from trade and working capital. Moving to US Consumer Bank. RoTE was 10.9% and 19.9% year to date. Income increased 1% with the Q2 American Airlines portfolio exit broadly offset by Best Egg and business growth. NII increased 3% year on year with lower average balances more than offset by higher NIM. This reflected mix effects and a circa 10 basis points one-off benefit from a change in the recognition of future customer rewards.

Higher interest rates do not materially affect NIM, as assets typically reprice within a month. Card and consumer loan volumes were as expected, though higher benchmark rates continued to weigh on market-wide pricing of consumer loans distributed through Best Egg. This created a circa GBP 20 million non-NII headwind in the quarter. Costs increased 14%, reflecting a full quarter of Best Egg costs, and the cost income ratio was 50%. We still expect a circa 12% RoTE in 2026, excluding the AA gain on sale. Let me step back from the quarterly performance. In the past three years, we have been transforming into a multi-product, digital-only US Consumer Bank with 23 million customers.

The partnership cards franchise remains at its core. Balances grew 6% organically in the past year as we rebalance towards retail to improve diversification and risk-adjusted margins. This includes circa 20% growth in General Motors balances since August 2025. The fully digital consumer deposit franchise shown in the middle has grown balances by 53% since 2023 to $26.6 billion. These deposits are around 50-60 basis points cheaper than wholesale funding and now comprise 84% of total funding. Most recently, Best Egg has added consumer lending capabilities with circa $7 billion of annual originations. This allows us to deliver even more value to partnership clients and their customers over time.

Bringing these propositions together will drive significant further growth in our most digital division. Our earnings momentum is driving consistently stronger capital generation. We are on track to generate around 200 basis points of capital this year and expect more than 230 basis points in 2028. This supports progressive shareholder distributions. Including the GBP 2 billion planned dividend for 2026, we have now announced GBP 10.7 billion of distributions since the start of the plan, even before any Q4 buyback. We take a prudent approach to both current and future regulatory requirements, regardless of materiality. Noting recent commentary on our TRS exposure on private credit loans, our approach here is no exception.

The conditions to classify the treatment as trading book were met, and our approach supported by appropriate governance internally and external review. This approach is unchanged under Basel 3.1 rules. For context, the mark to market of this exposure is small, currently around GBP 300 million within the GBP 15 billion private credit book, and is equivalent to GBP 1.5 billion of notional. Looking ahead, our plan and targets are based on operating around the top of our 13%-14% CET1 ratio while fully absorbing RWA headwinds in 2027. Put differently, the plan did not assume a reduction in Pillar 2A requirements.

As expected, Basel 3.1 will increase RWAs by GBP 8 billion-GBP 15 billion, equivalent to 30-55 basis points of CET1. We now have greater clarity on Pillar 2A, which will reduce the MDA by 59 basis points, more than offsetting the impact of higher RWAs. This gives greater capital flexibility, and we will update on the expected CET1 operating level within the 13%-14% range at full year results. Bringing this all together, we are delivering consistent revenue growth and amplifying this with positive operating leverage. This has driven the majority of the double-digit EPS growth in 2024, 2025, and year to date. In doing so, we are driving more consistent shareholder returns.

Buybacks of GBP 5.8 billion since 2023 have reduced the share count by 12%, further compounding EPS growth and delivering growth in TNAV and dividends of 32%. The plan does not end here. Before we open for Q and A, let me hand back to Venkat.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Thank you, Anna. Two years ago, we presented a vision anchored in measured ambition and disciplined delivery. As I told you in February this year, and as Anna has started to show you today, our operational performance and our financial success are two sides of the same coin. With one quarter to go until the end of the original three-year plan, I am very pleased to say that we have met or are positioned to achieve all of our primary group objectives. I want to illustrate that with examples across our businesses and then discuss the next stage of our execution ambition. This is to reduce our cost structure and increase operational efficiency.

Let me remind you of our U.K. retail strategy, the journey on which we have been, and the opportunity from here. This strategy has two pillars. First, we have repositioned the business into a multi-brand franchise, extending our client reach and the ability to tailor services to different customer needs. We acquired Tesco Bank in 2024, and it now accounts for 20% of card acquisitions and is a key lever in our deposit strategy. We acquired Kensington Mortgages in 2023. The Kensington brand and capabilities enable us to lend to more complex borrowers, and balances here have more than tripled since the acquisition. We are delivering a better client experience by investing in technology.

This includes our mortgage broker platform, where we have reduced application times from 45 minutes to less than 15, meaningfully improving our broker NPS score from -51 to +70. As a result, our market share is up 30 basis points since 2023 to 10.4%. The second pillar of our retail strategy is to establish Barclays as the premier U.K. bank. Improved customer service has culminated in Barclays having the highest Premier NPS among U.K. peers. As a result, since the end of 2023, we have increased Premier mass affluent customers by 27%, driving 23% deposit growth in this segment.

In doing so, we have shifted our deposit mix towards customers with larger balances and with the greatest need for long-term investment planning. We have the customers, including circa 400,000 in Barclays UK, that could benefit from investment advice, and we now have the most compelling, low price, high-quality proposition in Private Bank and Wealth Management in the U.K. These provide financial advice with no upfront fee and direct investing our investment platform with no custody fees. When it comes to U.K. corporates, we are uniquely placed to drive growth and investment. We have built the largest U.K. corporate deposit franchise by investing in transaction banking and having complete client coverage.

This starts with business banking in Barclays UK through to FTSE 350 clients in the UK Corporate Bank, and as the only full-service U.K. investment bank, we also serve the very largest FTSE clients in the International Corporate Bank. The U.K. corporate franchise has historically been the beating heart of Barclays, but it has lacked specific attention for some time. This changed after we resegmented the business at the end of 2023, gave it capital, and started reinvesting in technology. We are driving differentiated growth on both sides of the balance sheet, with lending growing materially faster than the market since 2024, driven by new and existing clients.

With a loan-to-deposit ratio of only 38% in the UK Corporate Bank versus 50%-75% of peers, we have much further to go. We are driving growth by delivering a better client experience. Around 45% of our clients now use iPortal, our digital access platform, exclusively, replacing five legacy platforms, and we expect this usage to rise to 100% by the end of this year. All of this will drive greater product usage, supporting our fee income, and allow us to decommission legacy tech platforms. In the Investment Bank, we are improving the returns footprint by altering the business mix and increasing productivity.

Within a broadly stable RWA footprint, we have increased income to average RWAs by 130 basis points since 2023, to now standing at 6.8% in the last 12 months. Ours is a story of discipline focused on greater client relevance, where we now rank top five with 66 of our top 100 market clients, up from 30 in 2021. To remind you, our target was for 70 out of the top 100 to be top five by the end of this year. We have driven structurally stronger, more predictable global markets income in two ways. First, by growing the stable income base, second, by reducing volatility and the seasonality of the intermediation business.

We have increased finance income by about GBP 1 billion since 2023, reflecting the investment which we have made in liquid financing, where we now rank fifth globally. This creates deeper relationships with 98 of our top 100 markets clients choosing Barclays for their financing needs. We are rebalancing towards equities, which now account for 45% of the year-to-date revenues in the markets business, versus 32% in 2023. Equity derivatives and prime have driven about 90% of this growth. The diversification of our revenues supports performance in a broader range of environments, with Q3 being a case in point, where we saw a 50/50 split in revenues between equities and fixed income.

We are improving performance across our businesses through disciplined delivery and rigorous execution. We have done so by investing in and building a constellation of segment-leading businesses. These include consumer businesses with over 40 million retail customers globally, the largest U.K. corporate bank by deposits, and a top-tier global investment bank. As we move from the first three-year plan to the second, we are also transitioning to the next phase of our journey. This is to accelerate operational improvements and drive even greater cost efficiency through deep technological transformation, reducing the unit cost of product manufacturing, service, and innovation. We are achieving this by standardizing our data, modernizing our infrastructure, and harmonizing our processes. We will employ AI at scale.

AI is the icing on the cake, not the cake. Investment underpinning this is within the plan we have outlined in February and is being made possible by our operating leverage. By continuing to execute our strategy with discipline and rigor, we are accelerating our ambition and securing structurally higher and all-weather returns beyond 2028. Segment-leading businesses, ambitious revenue growth, robust cost and operational efficiency, conservative capital and liquidity profiles, rigorous risk management, and strong capital generation. These are the principles and goals by which we aim to live and prosper at Barclays. I am now open to questions and answers. As ever, please limit yourself to two questions so we can get around as many of you as possible.

Please also introduce yourselves as you start your questions. Thank you.

Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please press star, followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star followed by two. Our first question for today comes from Jonathan Pierce of Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Pierce: Hello, good morning, both. Hope you're well. I've got two questions, one on capital, one on cost, please. On capital, the Pillar 2A drop, 59 basis points in equity terms, I think it's about 105 basis points in total capital terms. It's huge. Mathematically, it's equivalent to about GBP 50 billion of RWAs moving into Pillar 1, not the GBP 8 billion-GBP 15 billion that you're flagging for Basel 3.1. So I just think we need a bit more color on this. Is there something else going on here? Is this actually part of a much broader review of Pillar 2A and not just Basel 3.1?

And maybe as a supplementary to that, if you do land at 11.6%, which is what you're saying in the slides this morning, it's very similar to where Lloyds and NatWest are at the moment, and they're targeting a 13% equity tier one ratio. I know you're going to tell me we've got to wait for full year, but any insights into how you're thinking about this? Would you need to operate a little bit above or slightly higher buffer than those other two banks, maybe 13.5%? Be helpful for some color on that, please. Secondly, on costs. Thanks so much for the absolute cost guidance for 2027. I think that's really helpful.

I'm afraid, though, I'm going to ask about 2028. I'll keep it very simple. Are we still okay to rely on the bridge, the absolute cost bridge that you gave us with full-year results 2025? So that slide 66 that gave us a cost number in effect for 2028. If not, how should we think about 2028? Is it another year of run the bank cost being broadly flat like in 2027, and then the delta is investments? How should we think about 2028 costs, please? Thank you.

Anna Cross: Jonathan, let me take both of those. Let me start with Pillar 2A. What we are saying is that we are expecting a reduction in our MDA of 59 basis points. Essentially where this comes from is we have an annual process around Pillar 2A that includes Basel, but it will include other things. You are right to say that the Basel component is part of it, but that is an annual normal process and is an ongoing piece of work. The second thing I would say is that Basel is a big, complex change, and so you have some quite mechanical offsets, and then you have some that are a lot more complex than that.

I think it reflects both of those factors, Jonathan. Quite difficult to read from the outside. But as I step back from it, what it tells me is that we are well capitalized now in Pillar 2A for the capital environment that we are going to go into, number one, and number two, it gives us more capital flexibility as we go forward in the plan, because we had not anticipated this Pillar 2 reduction.

The other thing that I would say in response to your question, obviously we will talk about the range within which we expect to operate at the full year, but you should expect us to operate an appropriate buffer to the MDA as we do now. Do not expect that to change. To go to your second question, what we said at full year remains intact, specifically that you should expect modest cost growth and you should expect positive jaws.

What we are trying to highlight for you today is that in this phase of the plan, there is an increased intensity of investment, but we are also highlighting an increased efficiency, so that efficiency is up commensurately so that we can contain costs and make those two things true.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Right.

Anna Cross: That is how we think about it. Venkat, anything you would want to add?

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. Let me add on both, Jonathan. First of all, on capital. I think as we have made clear, in our planning up to now, we had taken into account what we thought would be the increases coming from the Basel process that is due to us in early January, and that is as we said, 30-55 basis points. We had not in our planning process, as Anna just said, taken into account what this Pillar 2A adjustment offset would be negative. Of course, net-net, this is a tailwind as you point out. On the efficiency side, just to add context to Anna's answer, what I would say is we have been investing in technology.

We continue deeply to invest in technology, simplifying our processes, modernizing our infrastructure. I would expect this to yield results over time. As we have clarity on it, we will share it with you.

Anna Cross: Thank you, Jonathan. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Alvaro Serrano of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Alvaro Serrano: Thanks for taking my questions. First one is on the Investment Bank. FICC, you have called out, I think, Venkat, somewhat disappointing, I think is the word you used. You have also explained that the intermediation activity was slower in the second half of the quarter. Is there something you could help us when we think about going forward? Is there any particularly bad, I do not know, marks in the quarter that should bounce back? Or is it a reasonable run rate, obviously, considering seasonality from here is maybe a bit of color in that, in particular FICC number, but maybe broader IB activity.

Related to that, Anna, you mentioned that you were, I cannot remember the word you used, but that you were leaning a bit more in with clients and increasing the RWAs to take advantage of opportunities. Is that going forward, would you be more open to give the division a bit more balance sheet and RWA growth? Thank you.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. Hey, Alvaro. Thank you. Look, there is nothing particular to call out. I think this was one of those quarters where in parts of fixed income, in rates, European rates particularly, and parts of credit, the intermediation was just a little weaker. We still think we have got a very good, strong client franchise. We see that in the engagement and the numbers. It was just one of those things where it was just weaker for a period. So nothing particular to call out. Of course, we are giving this attention to try to understand how to improve it.

I would say also, there are other parts of fixed income, like securitized products, in which we have been investing a lot, which have done very well. So this is not a general fixed income story. It is parts of it. Our franchise continues to be strong, and we will do better. Anna?

Anna Cross: Yeah, let me just add to that before I go into RWAs. I completely agree with Venkat. The things I would add is what we are really pleased with, Alvaro, is the areas that we have been investing in have done really well. If you look at our performance in equities, if you look at our performance in M&A, if you look at our performance in ECM, they have benched very well with the U.S. peer group, and that would not always have been the case. It is really reflective of the investments that we have made. I think that diversification of income, particularly as we look forward into the fourth quarter, is important.

As for leaning in on clients, the RWAs and the Investment Bank have been broadly flat since 2022, actually well before the plan that we are about to complete started even. They have moved between about GBP 195 billion and about GBP 205 billion. The thing that we have called out that is perhaps a little bit different is we are nearing the end of the three-year review of our Investment Banking loan portfolio. So you are seeing us lean in a little bit more there in terms of U.K. lending. Whilst outside of our target, that is completely consistent with our view of the U.K. So that is the only thing I would specifically call out, Alvaro.

Thank you for the question.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. Alvaro, if I may just sort of to pick up where Anna left off. When you look now we are 11 quarters into this three-year plan, and you look at the Investment Bank, it has delivered exactly what we wanted it to deliver, outperforming in some respects. It puts us in a very good position. Go back 11 quarters, we said we would do three things. We said we would increase the revenues in the Investment Bank, we would keep capital flat, which Anna has just said we have done for five years. We would improve profitability. Nobody thought we could do all three. Here we are. Profitability is approaching group levels at RoTE. Revenues have gone up.

The areas in which we have invested in, as Anna has said, equity capital markets, M&A, and equities generally and financing. The structural improvements in stable revenue streams and in financing return per unit RWA. All of that has worked, and we continue to maintain our ranks in spite of others investing more. The overall thing about RWAs or capital in the Investment Bank is we have always said it is a proportional game. That proportion is affected in part by what we do in the IB and part by what happens elsewhere. But in the IB, we have stuck to our guns.

GBP 200 billion of RWAs has been the average over five years, and the variation has been minimal, GBP 5 billion this way or that way. So this is playing out as advertised, as desired, and it puts us in a good spot continuing forward.

Anna Cross: Next question, please. Thank you, Alvaro.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Cant of Autonomous. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.

Chris Cant: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to come back on capital, please. Appreciating that the greater than GBP 15 billion capital return guidance you gave at full year 2026 was open-ended. But I do think that was an area that somewhat disappointed the market in terms of the relative level of ambition on capital return versus the plan for 2024 to 2026. Given that you've been able to accelerate your investment plans because of the revenue surprises this year, so you're getting done what you hope to get done, but more rapidly.

And given that you've now got confirmation on Pillar 2A, which I think was foreseeable in terms of quantum, but it's not something you had banked in the plan. Now you can bank that. Will you consider revisiting that greater than GBP 15 billion capital return aspiration? Because I think the reason you left it open-ended, was you wanted to leave slack in the plan for either potential M&A or potential accelerations in your investment plans. But in terms of M&A, given performance of the shares year-to-date, your acquisition currencies may be a bit softer than you would like, I would assume. And, in terms of the investment, you've already been able to accelerate that.

So is that something you'll consider revisiting alongside reconsidering the 13%-14% range? Thank you.

Anna Cross: Thanks, Chris, for the question. Let me just recap on what we said at full year 2025. The first was that we were planning at the top end of our range because we had clarity on Pillar 1, but we did not have clarity on Pillar 2, and other regulatory changes, like, for example, IRB. We are clearly in a different position now, so we do have that Pillar 2 clarity. We are very keen to get through Basel 3.1 implementation at the end of the year before we give further consideration to this point with you.

The second thing that we called out was that we were very clear that if you took the capital generation in the plan and the investments and the distributions in the plan, the capital generation was clearly bigger than the other two. We said very deliberately that gave us flex in order to either return that excess to shareholders or alternatively invest it in the business, but that was a very, very high bar. That remains exactly the same, and our capital hierarchy is very clear. Starts with regulatory, follows with shareholder distributions, thirdly, investment in the business. All of that remains as was. The only new piece here is the Pillar 2A.

We will come back at the year-end, Chris, and we will talk about the range within which we operate. You can see the focus that we have on returning capital to shareholders through the actions that we have taken in distributions in this plan alone, but specifically in this year. We are at 10.7% now, including the planned dividend that we have for the full year, and that is before we have done a full year buyback. I am not going to be pressed for an answer now, but we are clearly considering these matters, and we will come back to you. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Guy Stebbings of BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Guy Stebbings: Hi. Morning. I want to come back on capital and costs, please. On capital, just in terms of the Pillar 2A guidance, it is clearly very specific to the start of next year, whereas the RWA range is still a little bit wide. I just wonder if you could maybe narrow that range at all, or whether the fact that the Pillar 2A benefit is coming in a bit better than most of us anticipated, whether that implies the RWA headwinds might be a little bit towards the upper end of that range at all. Then on the costs, thanks for all the new disclosure and guidance. I also want to come back on the 2028 costs.

Before Q2 and the extra structural cost actions, consensus had been assuming a 2028 cost number sub GBP 18.4 billion. If we use slide nine in terms of the sort of building blocks, I am just trying to understand whether it is realistic to assume that efficiencies can more than offset the business growth and investments from the GBP 18.4 billion we start from in 2027, if you like. Thank you.

Anna Cross: Thank you, Guy. I will take the first one, and I will start on the second one and then invite Venkat to add. We have given you a Pillar 1 range, if you like, an RWA range, just because reflecting on what I said before, Basel 3.1 is a big and complex change. That range reflects the degree of mitigation that we will be able to implement as we go through that transition. It does not relate to any specific FRTB point or anything. It is more broadly an implementation range, given its complexity. So we are being cautious at this stage. That is why we are saying we will speak to you at the full year.

I would not narrow that range for you at this point. On your second point, recognizing 2028 costs, but also recognizing that consensus for 2028 is very wide. What we would reiterate here is we do expect modest cost growth. We do expect the cost income ratio in 2028 to be in the low 50s. All of that remains intact. What we are trying to help you here with is to understand that the way we are managing our costs is not by constraining investments, but by driving the operational efficiency of the Bank in order to bring the run the Bank cost down and create operating leverage. That is our focus.

You should assume that is going to continue into 2028. Venkat?

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah, absolutely. That is our focus. We think that the promise of technology and our implementation of the technology is being realized. We think more will be realized, and we are going to drive hard at that realization. Know that there is a great ambition and focus and discipline to bring to costs and cost efficiency what you have seen in other parts of this plan in the last three years, which is business growth, customer service, capital discipline, revenue growth.

Anna Cross: Okay. Thank you so much for that. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Rob Noble of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Noble: Morning. Another one on capital, I am afraid. Just the opposite question. The USCB moving to IRB, I think you say there is only going to be a minimal Pillar 2A change there. Why is that one smaller than the offsetting benefit that you get from Basel? Is that something that could come down over time as well? Then the leverage ratio as well. Should I expect the common equity tier one component of the leverage ratio to come down? Could that potentially be binding you from going too low relative to 13%? Lastly, just on the outlook with rates at the moment.

Can you give us any color on what you think the rate curve will do to the U.K. business specifically? I presume we shouldn't just reprice our hedges to higher rates. What do you think are the main potential offsets within the U.K. business from a higher rate environment?

Anna Cross: Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Rob. Look, in terms of capital and Pillar 2A with IRB, you might recall that in, I want to say Q1 2025, the increase associated with this was about 0.1% of CET1 of MDA. We do expect it to be more modest or modest. The reason I say that is this is much more BAU. This is much more, we're used to implementing these models. It's not the kind of big complex change that we see with Basel. I definitely wouldn't scale them to try and get another Pillar 2A a meaningful pillar to offset here. That's certainly not what we're expecting. We might see something modest. To be clear, we've got nothing in the plan.

Hopefully that's clear. Just on the U.K. and the rates curve. Okay. I'm going to answer your question by going in a different direction to start with, so bear with me. I think the thing that is most prevalent in the market at the moment is obviously competition around deposits. We think that comes not from the structural hedge directly, but it's actually coming from the fact that there has been strong lending in the sector. You see pay down of TFSME. You also see some deposit takers who are not loan makers in this part of the sector. What that's doing is putting a bit of funding pressure into this area, and that's manifesting in two ways.

One is more covered bond issuance, and the second is intense competition around term deposits. That's what we believe is happening. We would see that as being not transitory, given what I've just described. What does it mean for us? Well, we're in a slightly different position because clearly what we are doing here is we have a different funding reality. This business has a loan-to-deposit ratio of 90%. It has an LCR last time we reported it of about 167%. So it has really good liquidity levels. But we will lean in because we see the relationship and the ongoing relationship of deposits being really important here.

But that means we can be more selective, if you like, more disciplined. Of course, from our perspective, we have a very powerful structural hedge. What you are seeing at the moment is that we're able to balance these things in a few ways. Firstly, our focus on deposits is not just on term deposits. It's actually more broadly across the relationship, and you can see that in the growth in our Premier current accounts. That's really important. Secondly, as we approach the fixed-term market, we're approaching it through the lens of relationships. So about 90% of our growth year to date in ISAs is from Premier.

So we're being able to be very disciplined there, and also that's allowing us to balance the margin impact, if you like, on the business as a whole. And that's why you're seeing a broadly stable NIM. It's moving around a little bit, but we're being able to contain that point. So I wouldn't drop the upside in the structural hedge straight through to the bottom of your calculation. There will be some offsets here, and it's coming from increased funding costs, which are prevalent across the industry. But for those banks who have more liquidity and who have that more powerful structural hedge, they will fare better in this environment. Okay. Sorry, on the leverage ratio.

No, not really is the easy answer to that question. Venkat's just reminding me before I go on to the next question. But thank you, Rob. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Perlie Mong of Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Perlie Mong: Hello. Good morning. Just picking up a little bit more on the U.K., maybe. Thank you for the color you've given just now. But if I look at slide six, it does look like this continuum shift between savings accounts and time deposit, and that's consistent with the sector data we have seen. And I think in the last few weeks and months, we have maybe seen more competitors coming in, Morgan Stanley and Raisin, and also NS&I maybe stepping up a little bit more as well. So what are you seeing in terms of the front-end trend in terms of the deposit market?

And I think you said that an increase in hedge in October would reduce product margin next quarter. So what is the underlying product margin you're expecting, excluding that effect? So that's number one. And second question is on the USCB. I think the higher benchmark rate is maybe a GBP 20 million headwind in non-NII. I suppose even if we were to add it back, total income is still a little bit below where Q1 was. I think at the time you said that it wouldn't be a bad guide to use Q1 as a guide for the rest of the year. What are the moving parts there, and how should we think about that line going forward?

Anna Cross: Okay, Perlie. Why don't I take those? What you see in Barclays UK is that clearly there is growth in term deposits, but current accounts are absolutely flat and have been for some considerable time. Actually there's a slide in the back of the deck. It's in the appendix that you can have a look at there. I think what you're seeing is intense competition, as I said, in terms of fixed-term deposits, but somewhat churn within fixed-term deposits as opposed to migration out of current accounts. In terms of product margin, we're not guiding to NIM at all.

All we were calling out is that flight path or that chart is actually quite difficult to interpret because to the extent that we increase the size of the structural hedge, that means that income is coming out of product margin and going into the structural hedge bucket. That's the only thing we're warning you about, net nil impact on margin. I would remind everybody, though, that particularly given the new disclosure that we've given you today, our deposit story is much broader than the U.K. Particularly across the U.K., and you can see that in the strength of our corporate deposits.

Equally you can see there the stability that we have in the underlying operational accounts or current accounts, if you like, within corporate. So very similar story there. An ongoing increase in deposits, but real stability in the core. Your second question, which is about the roughly GBP 20 million headwind. What we said at the beginning of the year was we expected to build back by the end of the year to broadly the same sort of level as we saw in Q1. The only difference that we are calling out is in relation to the sold prices on Best Egg. Everything else remains the same. So we've got good underlying organic growth in cards.

They're growing at about 6%, exactly the same as we're seeing in the U.K., actually. Best Egg originations were GBP 2 billion in the quarter. We said it would be GBP 7 billion over the year. So all of that loan origination, the NIM is at 13.7%. Deposits are up by 15% year-on-year. So all of those factors are playing out exactly as we said.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Impairments are well-behaved.

Anna Cross: Impairments are very well-behaved, actually. They are flat despite the fact that AA has left the platform, and we would have expected that to have about a 30 basis point impact. The only thing we are calling out that is different, Perlie, is that GBP 20 million. Hopefully that gives you a good guide. Thank you, Perlie. Next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Hallam of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Chris Hallam: Yeah. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the question. So within financing in the IB, is it possible to provide the split of growth or of revenues between equities and FICC? You mentioned on slide 29, I think it is, that 90% of the equities growth year to date has come via prime and derivs. Therefore, it seems as though FICC financing must have been particularly weak in Q3, and I am wondering how much of that would have been the conditions you flagged in late September versus a proactive decision, if at all, to reallocate capital between FICC and equities?

Then mindful of the group revenue target for this year, would you be able to tell us whether those conditions persisted into November and how we should think about FICC seasonality to trend in Q4 this year versus the typical patterns we can see from prior years? Second question. The small box you have on slide 10, I think that is probably one of the clearest call-outs we have had in the sector on the tangible benefits of AI-enabled savings. It feels like the opportunity set there basically shifted higher, probably between February and July, which partly explains the additional SCAs.

Looking ahead, is the annual efficiency opportunity you see now in 2028 also greater than perhaps it was earlier this year?

Anna Cross: Chris, I am going to start, then I am going to hand to Venkat, and then I will pick up on slide 10, and I am sure he will have something to say as well. I think like most participants in the industry, most of the growth in financing has come from prime. We have also seen a very strong performance in derivs in equity, so I would not attribute all of the growth to prime. This really is not a capital matter. This is a prime and FICC, fixed income financing are leverage heavy, not capital heavy. Capital would not be in consideration here. Venkat, do you want to talk about that?

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. Chris, the way I think about it is this is into a couple of things. First of all, financing revenues grow because of relationships, because that is really important. You have to get on somebody's financing platform. As we said, 98 of our top 100 clients have a financing relationship with us. That financing relationship is strong both in equities and in fixed income. We have been one of the top fixed income financiers forever and ever. We continue to retain that market position. So that is structural. Capability, the relationship with the client, and for us, differentiating is we look at it as one.

So the client has one offering which they receive from us, as opposed to different salespeople coming in with different offerings. That is structural. Cyclically or seasonally, what you get is what is happening in the equity markets, what is happening in proportions of the equity markets. Over time, people have called out what is been happening in semiconductor stocks, what is been happening in Asian equities, and those are things that seasonally come up and down. In fixed income, it is levels of rates and types of spreads, and therefore, what are people trying to borrow and lend. So what I would expect coming into the fall, it is very hard to say.

Equity market volatility can certainly cut both ways in terms of how people want to borrow. I think in fixed income, what you have got is greater interest because of some greater spread volatility than you have seen in a long time, which should coming off the low base it has had increased interest and rates are higher, and that should help. But these are very crude ways to describe it.

Anna Cross: Okay, let me start on slide 10, and then I will ask Venkat to comment. What you see here is that we have got pretty good cadence, Chris, going where we have been spending typically around GBP 300 million, getting about GBP 700 million back. That is because the gross efficiencies that we are targeting relate in part to people actions over the last couple of years, but also sort of more general process improvements, et cetera, which have fewer costs associated with them. I think more specifically to your question, look, the changes that we are making in the third and fourth quarters of this year are sizable in terms of the impact.

They relate both to the simplification of the organization and to some of the impacts that we are starting to see from AI. I would say that they are very large in comparison to what we have previously sort of undertaken. I would not necessarily expect that to repeat nor indeed, the SCA, as you can see in our cost disclosures. But I think what we are seeing is that the technology opportunities here continue to indicate that there are further things that we can do to make the organization much, much more efficient. And Venkat, you might want to pick up here.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. I think there is a confluence of a couple of things happening here. One is what Anna just said. The technology opportunity set has increased and its capability has increased. Second is, what do you have to do to harness that? To harness that, you have to build the infrastructure to improve your processes, modern technology framework, simplified processes. Now, that requires perseverance and investment, which we have been putting in. And given the capital generation which we have had, given the success of the plan so far, that has given us both the capability and the will to make those investments. So what you are seeing is technology being able to deliver more.

AI sits on top of this technology. You have seen the capability financially and otherwise to make the investment and the will to do it in a sustained way. We have presented today what we have done for 2026, and we will continue to persevere hard at this over the next few years.

Anna Cross: Okay. Next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jason Napier of UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jason Napier: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess the first one for Venkat. I think Barclays is executing really energetically on strategy through restructuring and the acquisitions that you have made, and I am not sure the market is giving you much credit for that. I wondered whether you could start off by commenting on the recent news flow and the tone of that news flow around capital allocations and TRS' in the IB. The share price has proven reactive to that sort of coverage. As CEO and as a risk professional, how do you think about risk in the business, the forecastability of earnings, and how do you talk to the market about those sorts of factors, please?

Secondly, one for Anna. Just coming back to slide nine, and I want to say thank you for the absolute cost guide. I think that is helpful given some of the questions we were getting. Focusing on slide nine, your numbers for business growth, inflation, and investments are nearly 8% of starting costs. Two things. Number one, are we to think that those are the sorts of numbers that are required or might be normal for the Bank, this GBP 1.4 billion in total? Secondly, just in really high-level terms, what are the sort of areas that are absorbing that kind of money in 2027, please? Thanks a lot.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Hey, Jason. Thank you, first of all. Very, very good questions. Let me begin with the first one. I think the first one, and thank you for recognizing the effort we've been putting in into what you call energetic execution and disciplined execution. Appreciative of your words. There's a philosophy here, there's an approach, there's an attitude, there's a process by which we carry it out. Then there is what I would call noise in the market. Our philosophy is clear on execution, on making these plans. We've laid it out for the last three years.

We laid it out in February for the next three years, and we're telling you what we are doing, whether it's on revenue, whether it's on business, whether it's on capital, whether it's on costs, whether it's on investment. We will do our very best to continue to carry it forth in that disciplined and hopefully predictable way. When it comes to risk and whether it's regulatory aspects or otherwise, we take this really, really seriously. I said earlier today on a TV interview that for 10 years at Barclays, I've been Chief Risk Officer of the markets division for a brief period and CEO.

In this entire period, I have laid great stock on the importance of following the capital rules in letter and in spirit, and being very prudently capitalized. We aim to do so, and we are careful about what we do in these matters. Anna has spoken earlier about these TRSs, both in terms of our approach and the quantum involved. What I will say to you is our commitment to continue disciplined execution, careful stewardship of the company's resources, including capital and liquidity.

We've been very clear, even on capital, that you've seen the flow of the CET1, the capitalization ratio over the last number of quarters, coming to the level where it has, staying at the level where it has. Because we said our most important thing is to be well capitalized and well provided for in capital and liquidity. So continue to expect to see that disciplined execution, energetic execution, as you say, and prudent stewardship of our resources.

Anna Cross: Okay. Thank you, Venkat. Let me take everybody back to slide nine. The numbers that you're talking about, Jason, include business growth and inflation. I just want to be very clear about what we put in there. That also includes investment, BAU investment in our ongoing businesses. All of the benefits that you are seeing coming through in Premier, in Corporate, in Equities, et cetera, are all contained within that number. We think that is a cost of doing business, and therefore we're giving you a very fulsome run-the-bank cost here that includes inflation, includes that BAU investment, includes the cost of acquisitions also.

I genuinely think that you can't separate that from efficiency, because by growing the Bank, you have the opportunity to create operating leverage. It's not just through SCAs, as I mentioned before. It is actually about process improvement and the kind of volume benefits that you get or reducing marginal cost benefits that you get when you start pushing more volume through an existing platform. I will contrast that with the investments on the right-hand side that relate to future fee growth. So think wealth, think transaction banking, and think some of the technology changes that Venkat called out at the full year. I would really urge you to take them together.

The way we think about it is this is at least a neutral run-the-bank cost. Our objective here, because the intensity of investment has gone up, the intensity of efficiency has to go up. So expect us to be pushing that collection, if you like, of things that are bridged by the arrow very hard. That is what we are saying. Okay. Thank you. Can I have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Coombs of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Andrew Coombs: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple of follow-ups, please. Firstly, on the hedge allocation, I think at the start of this year, you expected 55% of the hedge to be allocated to Barclays UK That has now increased to 70%. So intrigued on why the allocation has changed so abruptly over the course of the year. Is 70% a good guide for the allocation going forward as well, please? Then the second question, a much broader question, and it is a follow-on from many of the ones you have already been asked. You have reiterated the GBP 31.5 billion revenue guide.

If you take nine months annualized, it gets you to about GBP 31.5 billion, but usually you do see seasonality in the Investment Bank in Q4. Can you just talk through the puts and takes on that revenue guide and what has given you the confidence to reiterate it, please? Thank you.

Anna Cross: Okay. Thanks, Andy. I think the disclosure that we have given you, so earlier in the year, it was actually about the growth in the structural hedge income. That confused everybody. What we have done now is we have reverted to a much simpler table of income allocation. So not growth in income, but income itself, which is why you are seeing that movement from 55% to 70%. You are still seeing the allocation going down to BUK. That does not mean to say that it will go down in absolute terms. Of course it will not be. But it is just that the structural hedge income is growing faster outside BUK.

That is in part because of the equity structural hedge, but it is also because the tenors of deposit relationships outside of BUK are actually longer. And that really speaks to the strength in our corporate deposit book. That is what is going on there. So apologies, but hopefully now clearer. To your second question. Look, the simple answer is year-to-date income growth is up 8%, and GBP 31.5 billion is 8% year-on-year growth. That is a simple answer, but let me try and be a bit more helpful. We still see a path to circa GBP 31.5 billion. Although, it is clear that Q3 income was weaker than we would have expected it to be or planned to be.

But here is how I think about the building blocks, and those building blocks reflect the diversity of income across the group, and our strategy and the natural momentum that we have got in this business. Let me start with the most certain, which is NII. NII has been about GBP 200 million up each quarter year to date. We expect that to continue. Oh, and what I should have said is to reach around GBP 31.5 billion.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: GBP 31.5 billion.

Anna Cross: Q4 needs GBP 31.5 billion. Q4 needs to be GBP 500 million up. So GBP 200 million of it, we believe, relates to NII. The second part to this I would call out is financing. Financing has been on average about GBP 150 million up year to date. The third piece actually relates to something we talked about earlier, which is really the strength in our Investment Bank business. We have very good line of sight to the M&A pipeline. We have good line of sight to the capital markets pipeline, although obviously that one is much more influenced by the uncertainty in the environment, and therefore there's a bit more uncertainty there about when things will complete.

M&A is much more certain. Then finally, that brings us to markets, which is the thing that we've been focused on here today. But again, I'll just remind you, we've had very good momentum in markets all year. FICC intermediation specifically has been weaker in Q3. So that's how we think about it. We continue to work towards that number, Andy. But just to be really clear, our north star for this year is RoTE, and for that RoTE to be greater than 12%. So that is the number that we are most focused on. Okay. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Amit Goel of Mediobanca. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Amit Goel: Hi. Thanks, guys. So just circling back to some of the previous comments and the implied kind of guidance. So I guess just basically on the back of the cost guide or the implied for 2028. So we talked about modest cost growth, and still sticking to the low fifties cost-income ratio. So when I'm doing that, I'm kind of getting to a revenue expectation of, or guide of around GBP 36 billion+. So that's about 5% above consensus. So I guess my first question is really what's kind of driving that, or where you see the kind of delta versus the consensus on that.

Then secondly, if that is correct, then I guess that kind of points more to a RoTE of I guess closer to 16% versus the greater than 14% target and the kind of 15% that consensus has got. Just basically curious what your thoughts are there and if that is consistent or, and essentially you do expect to materially beat your RoTE guidance, or am I missing something there? Thank you.

Anna Cross: Okay, Amit, let me take that. I am not going to comment on consensus numbers for 2028. I will just take you back to the guidance that we gave you at the beginning of the year, which remains intact, which is between 2025 to 2028, we expect a greater than 5% revenue CAGR between those years. We expect the cost-income ratio to be in the low fifties, and we have given you some guidance around absolutes and that we expect modest growth. Then, the final point is that the RoTE guidance is greater than 14%. Beyond that, I do not think we are in a position to sort of guide further.

But hopefully you can see from the momentum in the business and the kind of confidence that we are putting around our cost plans and intentions, that we are very focused on meeting those points of guidance. Thank you. Can I have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Edward Firth of KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Edward Firth: Yeah. Thanks so much. Good morning, everybody. I just have two questions. One was on credit. I noticed that your stage three coverage is down quite a bit, and it seems to be driven by rest of world corporate loans, where non-performing loans are up quite a lot in the quarter. I wonder if you could tell us something about what are you seeing there. Is that a specific one-off or is that like a trend? It's interesting you're not taking any additional provisions against that. I just wondered why that might be or what might the drivers be of that. That's my first question.

The second question is a broader question, I guess, for Venkat, of which I probably asked a derivative of this more than once before, but I guess it's as pertinent now as ever. Rather as Jason said, you're delivering a lot. You're delivering arguably ahead of the plan in a number of areas, but you're still the cheapest bank in Europe and probably the cheapest, certainly of a major size. I'm just trying to work out, is that something that burns internally? Is that something that you feel affronted by? If it is, what can you do about it?

Because clearly delivering on your current plan and delivering on your last plan is not going to make any difference to it. We can see that the rating relatively is moving in line. Should we expect as you come to full year, are there things that you think you can do that can actually change? It's not something that just time is going to-

Anna Cross: Okay

Edward Firth: is my question. Just related to that, is there any reason why somebody shouldn't bid for Barclays? There's nothing in Barclays that stops that happening, is there? That's my question. Thanks very much.

Anna Cross: So Ed, please could you repeat the last question? Your line is breaking up rather.

Edward Firth: Oh.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: The part where is there something anybody could be disappointed, just that part. I did not understand that.

Edward Firth: Sorry. Can you hear better now? Sorry.

Anna Cross: Yes.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yes

Edward Firth: Yes. Okay, so my second question was, delivering very well on the strategy, arguably ahead in places, but you are still the cheapest bank in Europe and probably the world. I am just trying to work out, is that something that sort of burns internally? Because after 10 years, time is not going to heal that, I do not think. Should we expect as you come to the full year, are there things you can do to try and address that? Is that something you want to address? I guess related to that, is there any intrinsic reason why a bank should not bid for Barclays? Is there anything in there that stops people taking advantage of that cheap price?

Thanks very much.

Anna Cross: Okay, so I will start, and then I am going to hand to Venkat for that lengthy question. So Ed, I looked at the same piece of disclosure, actually, and it is quite difficult to read because actually what the table shows is the full year picture at the bottom and then the Q3 position at the top. That movement in stage three is actually MFS. So it is from the full year, to now. It is not actually a Q2 to Q3 movement, but appreciate that the disclosure does not necessarily make that intuitively clear. So there is nothing beyond that I would call out to you. It is just MFS. Okay. So I am going to Yeah.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Right. Ed, thank you. You've given me the toughest question of the day so far. Look, first of all, thank you for what you're saying about the fundamental performance of the Bank, which of course I agree with and I share. I think we are operating well, and I'm very gratified by it. I'd not be human if I said that I was more gratified with the way the stock market was valuing us a few months ago than I am today. There are lots of factors that go into this. At a simple level, we control a lot of the inputs, and those are the inputs which we manage, and I hope we get the right output.

I think our strategy is now three years old, approximately. For the first two and a half years, the outputs, I think, recognize the inputs. The inputs are, as you say, earnings are going up, et cetera. I personally have the greatest conviction in our ability to achieve our targets, our will to execute discipline in a disciplined and energetic manner. Having studied mathematics for a lot of my life in the fundamental value that will come out of that in the net present value of an ownership stake in Barclays. If I look at it that way, I do think that the fundamentals and reason will prevail.

They have for a long time, and I don't think I should let six months affect us. There's a lot going on in the world. But I think when I look at the stock and I look at what should affect stock prices and something I've spent a good part of my life studying, it's important for management teams to control the inputs, to run a company well, to produce the returns for the shareholders, and then the shareholders will eventually, I think, value it appropriately.

Anna Cross: Okay. Thank you, Ed. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator: Our next question comes from Benjamin Toms of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Benjamin Toms: Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I am sorry if I have missed this already, but how much did your structural hedge notional grow by in October? I think you called out. I think when we spoke in Q3, the expectation was that the notional would remain flattish to the year-end, and current accounts have been flat in Q3. So I am just wondering what assumptions have changed. I know Dan departed the Bank in the quarter, so I am wondering whether you have a new Head of Treasury who is looking at things a bit differently in respect of operating with a strict caterpillar in an elevated rate environment.

Secondly, given the swap rates are elevated, can you give us a small color on what you are seeing at the front end on the mortgage pipeline? Banks think about spreads holistically. Do you think you can grow mortgage spreads in the current higher rate environment to partially offset lower deposit spreads if competition remains intense? Thank you.

Anna Cross: Okay. Ben, we did not call it out. You can see it has been broadly stable at the quarter end. To the extent that we change the hedge notional, that means that we have more confidence in the stability of interest in sensitive balances. The caterpillar remains strict, is the way I would describe it.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Oh, yeah.

Anna Cross: To your second question on swap rates and mortgages. When swap rates move around, we can see price volatility in mortgages. We've certainly seen that, both through the quarter and continuing. I think what we are seeing is that the market has swung a little bit towards remortgage, certainly in the current environment. So we're seeing good demand there. That is good for us, because everybody forgets that before we bought Kensington, everybody saw us as a very vanilla remortgage bank. And we have very good levels of retention. Our retention is around 80%, so very pleased with that.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Can I talk about that? Part of that is the investments we've made in the technology for remortgaging. So your time went from 45 minutes to get to 15 minutes to get the application approved.

Anna Cross: Yes.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: These little things go a long way.

Anna Cross: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, in terms of mortgage spreads, there's going to be a little bit of a mixed thing here happening I would call out. Your question's a good one, though. Rather than talking about mortgage spreads specifically, if I refer back to the answer I gave before, funding costs in retail banking have gone up. That is certainly true. Just because of that growth in lending, the reduction of TFSME and the other participants that I called out, and you're seeing that in fixed term deposits. That's going to have to come out somewhere. But it's not something that I would call out right now. Okay. Perhaps we could go to the next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alberto Artoni of Intesa Sanpaolo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Alberto Artoni: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. You have two on the Investment Banking. On FICC, sorry for coming back on this one. You mentioned the lower level activity of clients. I was wondering if, also you add some own proprietary trading that adds some kind of impact or the market making activity. Sometimes the definition is a bit blurred, and so perhaps you had some position in your books that, given the fact that the rates and the spreads moved the way they did, may have had an impact on your performance this quarter. If that's the case, could you please just give us a bit of a color around that? Secondly, on financing, on the market activity.

I see, of course, that very good part of your equity story as you're increasing that component, which tends to be more stable, and so that's very much a good development. I was wondering if you see room for continuing increasing in that part of the business, also perhaps gaining market shares at the expense of the other banks, or you feel that you've now reached the market share you're comfortable with and it will be difficult gaining market share going forward. Also if there are any specific risks that you see in financing. Thank you.

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah. Thank you, Alberto. First of all, on FICC, on fixed income. There is nothing to call out. This is a client-driven business with risk management limits. You can see our VaR numbers. We run all the desks very prudently, aim to do so. There is really nothing to call out here. Second on financing. One of the things we have said here is that 98 of our top 100 clients have financing relationships with us. I have also said that what we aim to do is to do this with our very biggest clients and to do more of it with them. The risks in this business are always client selection.

There are names of prominent funds every now and then. There was one in this last quarter, which can cause anxiety for banks if they deal with them. I am happy to say we did not deal with the one that was mentioned. But client selection is important, and then being watchful of volatility in the markets is important. But having said all of that, as I said, we focus on the larger clients with whom we have the deeper relationships, and I would look to gain share by doing more with them rather than expanding the universe of clients beyond what I think is prudent.

Anna Cross: Okay. Thank you very much for that. May we have the next question, please, which I believe is the last question. Thank you.

Operator: Our final question for today comes from Nicolas Payen of Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Nicolas Payen: Yes, morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on financing, one on the U.K. corporate lending growth, please. On financing, coming back on that topic, what constraints are the growth in prime financing versus fixed income financing? And between those two, which offer the best return after funding, liquidity, and balancing costs, please? On the U.K. corporate lending growth, as you deploy more and more deposits into lending, what do you see as a bottleneck here? Is it demand from corporate? Is it pricing? Is it credit appetite or even your platform? Thank you very much.

Anna Cross: Okay. Why don't I start? I am sure Venkat will add. On financing growth, I think the simple point here is that fixed income financing, Venkat often calls Barclays, the house that fixed income built. We have always had a much stronger market share in fixed income financing than we have in prime. What we have been able to do is grow prime alongside fixed income financing and really leverage clients across both parts of that business. As Venkat said, running it as a single face to the client. So, I think our ranking on prime is still below what it would be in fixed income financing. So that is probably the simple answer, but I will let him add.

On U.K. corporate lending, the way I think about this is we are the largest bank for corporate deposits in the U.K. Now, we make that somewhat difficult to understand because it sits across three different divisions, but we have brought that together for you today. We also have the lowest loan-to-deposit ratio. That tells you that we have very strong relationships and a real opportunity here to grow across business banking, across International Corporate Banking, and UKCB, across all three of those stripes. And so I would not say there is no liquidity constraint here. It is really about growing those relationships and being open to lend to those clients, which we have been. And we have built capability.

We have now got about 45% of our corporate banking clients on iPortal. That will be 100% by the end of the year, and that means that they can bring their relationship much more holistically together. So, the growth that you have seen in our lending is even before that technology really starts to take hold. Venkat, anything you would want to add on

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yeah

Anna Cross: financing and prime?

Venkatakrishnan Coimbatore Sundararajan: Yes, just working backwards on the corporate lending. What you have seen over the last couple, three years is we have actually removed bottlenecks. The technological investment in iPortal is one of them, and then the capital in the balance sheet we have lent to this business is the other. So the focus is really strong and for all the other reasons Anna said that we are confident in this area. We are the largest corporate bank in the U.K. Second on financing. Just the thing to add is that we view the relationship with the client holistically. We do fixed income and equities with both, and that is partly our working with the largest clients.

There is not a competitive element between capital allocation between the two of them. It is actually a combined and holistic coverage. That is the basis of that franchise, which is the strong client relationship. Listen, thank you, everybody. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your attention. Thanks for your tough questions and your encouraging words. Anna and I always find this call a pleasure. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes the Barclays Q3 2026 results analyst and Investor Conference Call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.