Barclays PLC (BARC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Barclays Q1 2025 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.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Barclays' First Quarter 2025 Results Call. At our progress update 11 weeks ago, we outlined expectations for the second year of our 3-year plan. These were to deliver a better run, a more strongly performing and higher-returning Barclays. I'm pleased with our performance and progress to date, including in this -- the first quarter of 2025. While the environment has certainly become more uncertain, we are firmly on track to achieve the full objectives of our plan, including approximately 11% return on tangible equity for 2025. Our confidence reflects the inherent diversification of our business, the careful and proactive approach, which we adopt to managing risk and our ongoing focus and delivery of operational efficiency. All of this is supported by a robust balance sheet, including a 13.9% CET1 ratio at the end of the first quarter. This is intentionally towards the top of our 13% to 14% target range. In addition, we are supported with very strong liquidity. In the first quarter, Barclays generated a return on tangible equity of 14%. This was achieved even as tangible book value grew 11% year-on-year to 372p. Total income for the first quarter was GBP 7.7 billion. And importantly, the quality and stability of our income continues to improve. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our income growth profile and today, we are upgrading 2025 NII guidance for Barclays UK and the group, reflecting favorable deposit volumes and mix. And we will amplify our top line growth through positive operating leverage as we did again during the first quarter with 6% jaws, delivering a 57% cost income ratio in the quarter. Moving on to our Q1 performance. We are improving operational performance across the businesses to drive sustainably higher financial returns. Last quarter, we released around GBP 150 million of the circa GBP 500 million gross cost efficiency savings, which we expect during the year. These savings structurally improve our cost base and the level of consistency of our returns, including beyond 2026. We are generating higher returns in 2 ways: First, by allocating more capital to the highest-returning U.K. businesses; and second, by improving returns in the lower-returning businesses in the bank, namely the Investment Bank and the US Consumer Bank. Across the 3 U.K. businesses, we continue to grow our risk-weighted assets in the quarter and delivered returns at or around the full year '26 target levels. Returns in the Investment Bank was supported by ongoing execution of management actions and strong activity in markets, in particular, in fixed income and credit, where we monetize activity well and continued disciplined approach to risk management. As you would expect in a period of uncertainty, weaker client confidence is delaying investment banking transactions. But for us, this has been more than offset by the benefits of the impact of volatility on trading revenues in markets. While RoTE in the US Consumer Bank fell year-on-year to 4.5%, the operational performance of the business continues to progress as we expected. Finally, we are continuing to simplify our businesses. Two weeks ago, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield to transform our payment acceptance business. We are looking forward to working closely with our partner to enhance the client experience, drive long-term growth and improve financial performance for this activity. Earlier in this quarter, we completed the sale of our German consumer finance business. So while we remain focused on executing our strategy and achieving our targets, we are obviously playing close attention to the recent market volatility and what it may imply for economic growth and business activity. And so before I hand over to Anna, let me offer some reflections on the current backdrop. I want to emphasize at the outset that our strategy has been designed to deliver in a range of economic and financial environments, and I reiterate our confidence in achieving the targets which we have set out financially and operationally for 2025 and 2026. Our role, as ever, is to help clients navigate the changes in the environment. We must do so while prudently managing our own risk. We are well positioned to do this. We start with a business mix that is diversified geographically across wholesale and retail, and by product. And in fact, all of this is well illustrated by the first quarter results, which we are discussing. Last but not least, our customers start from a resilient position. In the U.K., household balance sheets are robust, and spending trends have been stable. In our U.S. consumer businesses, our balances are skewed to prime and super prime customers. And spending in payment rates across our U.S. customer cohorts have remained stable, including among lower-FICO customers. On the wholesale side, corporates are cautious about new borrowing and demonstrate a desire to maintain liquidity. Having said all that, the current environment and market volatility undoubtedly require attention and management. Looking ahead, we expect net interest income to grow further and for markets revenues to be roughly commensurate with volatility. However, transactional and lending income could slow as companies and individuals become more cautious. This income mix provides a good measure of structural protection and stability. On top of this, we have to protect ourselves, as we always do, with active risk management. We have long-established programs to transfer and hedge risks, and we will continue to do so as warranted by this environment. Finally, we continue to provision prudently across all our portfolios. In conclusion, while we recognize the risks that are inherent in the current environment, we remain confident in our income outlook and are positioning ourselves carefully to navigate through this current circumstance. We remain committed to and confident in delivering our 2025 guidance and 2026 targets, including an approximately 11% RoTE and a progressive capital distribution this year. I will now hand over to Anna to take us through the first quarter financials.

Thank you, Venkat, and good morning, everyone. Slide 4 summarizes the financial highlights for the first quarter. Before going into the detail, I would remind you that we are focused as ever on what we can control. The plan and targets we called out at the investor update are based on realistic assumptions about the external environment. These are unchanged from the full year results and are shown in the appendix. The group's diversified business model by income and geography helps support returns in a range of environments, delivering a Q1 RoTE of 14%. This was against the previous year's 12.3%, with much of the improvement reflecting income growth across all 5 divisions, particularly the Investment Bank and Barclays UK. Operating leverage is a key aspect of the plan to structurally improve group returns. Income rose by 11%, while costs rose by 5%, delivering 6% positive jaws and driving a 19% increase in profit before tax to GBP 2.7 billion. This performance was further amplified by the effect of the share buybacks during the past year, leading to a 26% increase in earnings per share. I remain focused on 4 aspects of performance: Income stability with an increased emphasis on growth, cost discipline and progress on efficiency savings, credit performance and a robust capital position. These underpin our aim to deliver higher returns on a sustainable, predictable and consistent basis. I'll now cover these in more detail, starting with income on Slide 6. Income in Q1 increased GBP 700 million to GBP 7.7 billion. This growth was broad-based, including from stable income streams in retail, corporate and financing activities within markets. In the Investment Bank, we captured the benefit of greater market volatility during the quarter, supported by our investment across the business. And in Barclays UK, stronger-than-expected deposit trends are supporting higher NII, as shown on the next slide. Group net interest income increased 13% year-on-year to GBP 3 billion. In Barclays UK, we now expect more than GBP 7.6 billion of NII during FY '25, up from circa GBP 7.4 billion previously. Two changes have led to this improvement in our outlook. First, Q1 seasonal deposit volumes were higher than we expected, particularly in current accounts consistent with more normalized behavior. Second, the mix of savings has stabilized faster than we expected. This improvement in deposit mix supports our confidence in lowering Tesco Bank's post-acquisition funding costs. These developments and a strong start to the year across other businesses mean we now expect group NII, excluding the IB and head office to be more than GBP 12.5 billion for FY '25, up from circa GBP 12.2 billion previously. The continued strength of deposits also supports greater longer-term income stability via the structural hedge. We have now locked in GBP 10.2 billion of gross structural hedge income over the next 2 years, up from GBP 9.1 billion last quarter. And this income will build further as we reinvest maturing hedges. We said in February that we expect to reinvest 3 quarters of maturing hedges of a 3.5% yield. In Q1, we were able to lock in hedges at a higher rate than our assumption with a stable hedge notional. Continued deposit strength means we now expect to reinvest around 90% of maturing hedges during 2025 and 2026, versus 75% previously. Given this reinvestment profile and our planning assumptions for 3.5% swap rates, we expect the contribution from the structural hedge to continue well beyond 2026. Moving on to costs. The group cost-to-income ratio was 57% in Q1. This provides a strong foundation to deliver guidance of circa 61% in 2025 and the high 50s target in 2026, with scope to improve further thereafter. Total costs increased by GBP 189 million year-on-year with around half of this increase related to run rate costs for Tesco Bank. Q1 costs also included circa GBP 50 million for the employee share grant announced at the full year results. These and other investments in business growth and inflation were partially offset by around GBP 150 million of gross efficiency savings as part of the GBP 500 million we expect in 2025. Expenses associated with structural cost actions were modest in Q1 and are likely to be weighted towards the second half of 2025 and within the GBP 200 million to GBP 300 million normal annual range. Turning now to impairment. I know that developments in the U.S., in particular, are a big focus, so we have included some additional color on the positioning of our U.S. card business in the appendix. Customer behavior does not reflect risks to the economic outlook, and we start from a resilient position, including an IFRS 9 coverage ratio of 10.4% or 8.3% on a CECL basis. Both 30- and 90-day delinquencies were stable in the quarter, as you can see from the 2 lines on this page. The USCB loan loss rate of 562 basis points increased versus Q4, reflecting reserves billed for higher seasonal balances and a post-model adjustment. I'll discuss this more on the next slide in the context of the group. The Q1 group impairment charge of GBP 0.6 billion equated to a loan loss rate of 61 basis points, modestly above our 50 to 60 basis points through the cycle guidance. As a reminder, our impairment charge is based on consensus economic forecasts prevailing towards the end of the quarter. These forecasts were largely unchanged from FY '24 and so do not reflect elevated U.S. economic uncertainty. To address this and consistent with our approach to uncertainty in the past, we increased the probability weighting of downside scenarios in our IFRS 9 calculations for U.S. portfolios. This led to a net post-model adjustment of GBP 74 million, included within the US Consumer Bank and the Investment Bank. The impact for U.S. cards relates mainly to a change in the weighted average peak U.S. unemployment rate from 4.7% to 5.2%, resulting in a GBP 38 million adjustment. While in the Investment Bank, a reduction in the weighted average U.S. GDP growth from 1.6% to 0.8% led to a net GBP 36 million model adjustment. Outside of the U.S., the increase in the Barclays UK loan loss charge was mainly driven by the addition of Tesco Bank. This included a circa GBP 30 million charge for the post-acquisition stage migration of some Tesco bank balances, which should diminish beyond Q1. Aside from Tesco Bank, the loan loss rate for Barclays UK increased modestly but remains low. You can see financial highlights for Barclays UK on Slide 12, but I will talk to Slide 13. RoTE was 17.4% in the quarter and total income rose 14% year-on-year to GBP 2.1 billion. The integration of Tesco Bank is progressing well with the improved deposit mix providing greater confidence on lower post-acquisition funding costs. As a result, we now expect circa GBP 500 million of NII from this business in FY '25, included within the updated NII guidance versus circa GBP 400 million we expected previously. Stronger structural hedge income also supported greater NII versus Q4 and more than offset product margin headwinds. Non-NII of GBP 252 million was weaker due to seasonally lower customer spend, and we continue to expect a quarterly run rate above GBP 250 million. Overall, income growth of 14% exceeded cost growth of 9%, enabling the cost-to-income ratio to fall to 56% despite higher investments and run rate cost for Tesco Bank. Moving on to the Barclays UK balance sheet. Deposits in the quarter were stronger than expected, with balances down only GBP 1.1 billion, consistent with a more normalized behavior. The mix of deposits continues to develop favorably with customers choosing to retain liquidity through current accounts and instant access savings accounts. Loan growth also continued in Q1 with GBP 1.9 billion of net lending driven by mortgages, partially offset by lower business banking lending as clients continue to repay COVID-era loans. Indicators of future lending activity continued to improve as we pursue our strategy to deploy capital into the U.K. The momentum and breadth of U.K. growth that we saw in the second half of 2024 continued in the first quarter. Gross mortgage lending remains strong, including among home movers and first-time buyers, supporting net lending of GBP 2.2 billion. We acquired 386 (sic) [ 386,000 ] new credit card customers as part of our strategy to regain market share in unsecured lending. This should support future growth in balances as customers' appetite to borrow normalizes, and we saw continued deployment of risk-weighted assets in the UK corporate bank, supporting GBP 1.3 billion loan growth as clients continue to draw down lending facilities. Moving on to Slide 17. UK Corporate Bank delivered a Q1 RoTE of 17.1%. Income growth of 12% exceeded cost growth of 3%, leading to an improved cost-to-income ratio of 53%. NII was up 23% year-on-year, reflecting higher average lending and deposit balances, while non-NII fell 10%. While this line can be volatile, we expect investments in our digital and lending propositions to drive non-NII growth over time. Impairments remain low and stable, decreasing quarter-on-quarter with lower single-name charges. Turning now to Private Bank and Wealth Management. Q1 RoTE was 34.5%. Client assets and liabilities grew versus Q4, including net new assets under management of GBP 1 billion. And income growth of 12% exceeded cost growth of 9%, leading to a cost-to-income ratio reduction to 68%. As previously guided, you should expect an increase in investment costs in the quarters to come to support adviser growth, product development and digital capabilities. Turning now to the Investment Bank. Q1 RoTE of 16.2% was supported by income growth across most areas of the IB. Total income was up 16% year-on-year, while total costs rose 5%, resulting in positive jaws and a cost-to-income ratio of 54%. Capital productivity, measured by income over average RWAs, was 7.7% or 120 basis points better year-on-year. More now on income by business on Slide 22. Using the U.S. dollar figures as usual to help comparisons to U.S. peers, Markets income was up 16% year-on-year. FICC rose 21%, with particular strength in macro products across rates and FX and in securitized products. Equities income was up 9%, or by 27% excluding the prior period's one-off gain on Visa B shares. Financing and equity derivatives were particularly strong. Investment banking fees rose 4%. Our fee share was 3.5%, including an improvement in ECM and advisory. While clients are waiting for a more stable market environment before transacting, pipelines remain strong. In transaction banking, income increased 8% as we continue to implement our treasury coverage model. This also contributed to U.S. deposit balance growth of around 50% year-on-year, which we see as a lead indicator of transaction banking income growth. And corporate lending income increased strongly year-on-year, reflecting gains on leveraged finance positions. The Investment Bank is on a multiyear journey to generate higher and more consistent returns. Volatility creates opportunities in markets, where we generate around 2/3 of investment bank income. Investments we have made into this business allowed us to monetize these opportunities well during Q1. We did this while prudently managing risk with stable VaR and no loss days in our trading book. And in banking, we entered into the most recent period of volatility with a limited exposure to risk, including in LevFin. We are also making good progress in our management actions including in our 3-focused businesses: Equity derivatives, European rates and securitized products, all while growing the more stable income streams within the Investment Bank, including financing. Turning now to the US Consumer Bank. US Consumer Bank RoTE was 4.5% in the quarter, including the GBP 38 million post model adjustment I mentioned earlier. Total income was up 1% year-on-year as lower NII was offset by higher non-NII. NII was down 1% with NIM of 10.5%, driven by a full quarter impact of rate cuts in Q4 '24, which drove spread compression with deposits taking longer to reprice than assets. This interest rate risk is hedged with the offsetting benefit reflected in non-NII, which increased 9% year-on-year. We remain confident in achieving NIM of greater than 12% by 2026 and expect meaningful progression during 2025 as the impact of our repricing actions take hold in the portfolio. Total costs were up 5%, due to an increase in partner-related expense, which is mostly offset in higher noninterest income. We continue to make good progress in increasing digital adoption and driving efficiency. End net receivables increased 4% year-on-year to $33 billion on a managed basis, all from organic growth. We continue to see strong retail deposit growth, including $2 billion quarter-on-quarter and $4 billion year-on-year, driven by the tiered savings product that we launched in Q3 2024. The percentage of total funding coming from core deposits now stands at 68% and we expect this to increase going forward in line with our target of greater than 75% in 2026. Moving to the main developments impacting head office. Earlier this month, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield for our payment acceptance business previously referred to as merchant acquiring. This business is strategically important but had become less able to compete in recent years, given technology changes in the sector and absent investments, financial performance was expected to deteriorate. Through the partnership, Barclays will invest circa GBP 400 million, mostly in the next 3 years to enhance the range of services, improve efficiency and support growth. This will begin in Q2 and has no material impact on our current financial targets or guidance. Over time, we expect the partnership to improve the financial performance of the business as part of Barclays Group. If Brookfield choose to increase their ownership interest after 3 years, our investment will be fully recovered, and we will retain an interest of around 20%. Moving to capital. We ended the quarter at the top end of our 13% to 14% target range with a CET1 capital ratio of 13.9%. This included 53 bps of capital generation from profits and a 12-bps benefit from the sale of German consumer finance, partially offset by the 28 bps impact of the GBP 1 billion share buyback announced at FY '24 results. RWAs decreased around GBP 7 billion from Q4 to GBP 351 billion with FX accounting for circa GBP 3 billion of the move. The sale of the German consumer finance business reduced head office RWAs by GBP 3.3 billion, while Barclays UK and the UK Corporate Bank saw a combined RWA increase of GBP 0.8 billion. Investment Bank RWAs were 56% of the overall group and broadly flat from Q4, excluding FX despite the higher income and usual Q1 seasonality. As usual, a word on our overall liquidity and funding on Slide 29. We have strong and diverse funding, including a 73% LDR and an NSFR of 136%, and we are highly liquid across currencies with an LCR of 175%. These measures reflect purposeful and prudent management of our balance sheet and risk, delivering resilience and capacity to support customers in a range of economic environment. TNAV per share increased 15p in the quarter and 37p year-on-year to 372p. Attributable profit added 12p per share during Q1 and the unwind of the cash flow hedge reserve added 4p. We expect the majority of the remaining cash flow hedge reserve to unwind by the end of 2026. This unwind, combined with earnings growth and buybacks, give us confidence that TNAV will continue to grow consistently, as it has done for the last 7 quarters and to a greater degree than current consensus expectations. So to summarize, we are pleased with the strong performance of the bank in Q1, which sets us up well to deliver on all our 2025 guidance as we build towards our 2026 targets. Over to you, Venkat, for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Anna. 5 quarters into the 3-year plan, we remain on track to deliver our goals. We are working hard to deliver sustainable operational and financial improvement across our businesses. This, in turn, we expect will drive higher group returns and shareholder distributions. I'll now open the Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Guy Stebbings from BNP Paribas.

Good set of results today. I did want to focus on the area, which, as you rightly said, gets quite a lot of attention, which is the US Consumer. And thanks for the extra disclosure. I'm just hoping you could help us think about the book and the strategy as we look forward. So firstly, on the impairment charge, I guess, for the quarter, GBP 399 million, it's -- the actual write-offs themselves were flattish and sort of in line with the last 4 quarters. You've taken the PMA and increased the coverage. So could you talk to the drivers of the increase in the reserve build that goes above and beyond the PMA this quarter perhaps? And in terms of the growth, and as we look forward, the strategy is predicated on very much growth in the business, but I think a lot of people would understand you being a little bit more circumspect if delinquency trends look like they were deteriorating. My question really is sort of how wedded are you to growing the book meaningfully as planned and into higher margin but slightly higher-risk segments? And how easy would it be to pause that growth, if you like, presume you sort of still feel good in the long-term outlook and don't want to exit partnerships. So trying to understand how you weigh up balancing that strategic outlook with the current uncertainty.

Thank you, Guy. Thank you for the questions. So I will take the first one and then I'll pass the second one to Venkat. So as we look at our US Consumer business right now, we have given you additional disclosure. I'm glad that's helpful. That's on Page 38, and it's a bit more of a holistic view of what's going on in the U.S. market generally but also in our book. But really, what happened in Q1 is as a BAU matter, you've got a slight seasonal elevation in the impairment charge. We normally see that in Q1, and it's just reflective of the high levels of consumer spend that we see in Q4 through the holiday season. Typically, what then happens is you start to see that reverse in Q2 and beyond. So, so far, very straightforward. In terms of the PMA, it's worth stepping back and thinking about we consider when we book impairment, and we're looking at 2 things. The first is consumer behavior. And the second is what we expect to happen in the macroeconomic environment. On the first, in consumer behavior, we see no change. And you can see that clearly on the charts, delinquencies are relatively low and stable. Actually, we see no change on the second. So U.S. economic consensus forecasts are actually relatively static and they're very similar to where they were at the full year. But we think that's likely a timing issue. And therefore, it's reasonable for us to assume that they will change in the coming weeks and months. And therefore, we're trying to get ahead of that. So we're being thoughtful and methodical. So what we've done is essentially skew the downside bias in the impairment charge to accelerate a bit of coverage here. But just as we step back, the performance of the book itself is extremely robust. Venkat?

Yes. So I think I've said in the past, when I look at the book overall, there's about 20 corporate clients, 20 million underlying customers. And I look at the risk or we look at the risk of this portfolio in 4 dimensions. The first dimension is who is the partner and what business they are in and so on. The second is related to that, what's the industry. We've had a bias towards travel, and we are looking to diversify out of travel. We added Gap, we added General Motors, and we chose not to renew American or our share of American. The third is the size and renewal rates. So we like to have a mix that is relatively smaller to our overall portfolio and not a lot of renewals coming in at the same time. And the last one is the actual underlying credit card creditworthiness of the borrower. And through this combination, we like to create a business with a stable risk -- and higher risk-adjusted return. So when you take all of this together, we are continuing to want to grow this business. We do think the opportunities are great. Obviously, we will factor in the consumer environment when we do the actual risk selection of customers and look to get good risk-adjusted returns. And that risk selection is who do you open an account for and how do you manage credit lines. But we will continue to see good partners that diversify our book and bring us opportunity.

The next question comes from Benjamin Toms from RBC.

Both are really around regulations. Barclays has been a market leader on SRT transactions. And in April, the regulator wrote to all U.K. banks highlighting concerns in this area. Is there any headwinds to capital that we should be considering as a result of implementing any relevant changes that are identified in that letter? And secondly, some of your peers have written to the government asking for a softening in the ring-fencing regime. How material could a change in regulation be here for you? From the outside, it feels like you'd be one of the large beneficiaries of any change here.

Thank you, Ben. Again, I'll take the first and then hand to Venkat for the second. So on SRT, the Dear CFO letter that we and others received recently did deal with SRT, but it was actually more focused on the financing of SRT and to be really clear, we do not finance our own SRT programs. So we're not extending financing to investors who are then ongoing investors in our SRT. So we think that's the focus. From our perspective, we've run our Colonnade program since 2016. We share the details of each tranche of that with the regulator in order to get capital relief and we manage the reinvestment risk around that very, very carefully as we've outlined before. So we're comfortable with our position and wouldn't envisage any capital consequences. Venkat?

Yes. So on ring-fencing, I think you know that of the major U.K. banks, we have been opposed to any change in relaxation in the ring-fencing regime. So while I agree with what others say, that there is friction in the system, there's obviously a high cost to set up the ring-fence, let's call it a sunk cost now, and there's a little bit of trapped capital and liquidity. And if you release that, in the short term, it would be good for banks and, let's argue, for some customers. But I think in the long term, it weakens the system because it weakens the depositor protection. So I think the ring-fence is an extremely strong and secure form of depositor protection in the U.K. And while it might be short-term attractive, I think in the long term, it weakens the system, it weakens the participants in the system, and that includes Barclays. That's why on balance, I do not think we should change the ring-fence regime, and I'm a strong supporter of this in its current form.

The next question comes from Chris Cant from Autonomous.

I had 2, please. First on RWAs, how should we think about RWA developments into 2Q, specifically thinking about market risk here given the volatility. Obviously, 1Q was a somewhat unusual quarter where IB RWAs were down on a constant FX basis, didn't seem to demonstrate the usual seasonality. So any color you could give us on how to think about Q-on-Q RWA developments into 2Q for the IB would be helpful, please. And as I think out to your sort of targets, the 2026 targets that you've given us previously, and the circa GBP 50 billion of RWA growth you expected by the end of 2026. Obviously, Basel III has been delayed, card IRB transition, I guess, is probably going to be a '27 event. I know you said it's sort of ambiguous, but that's not necessarily going to hit you. With the weaker dollar, I guess that's also going to reduce the sort of RWA growth. How should we be thinking now about where you expect to land in 2026 for group RWAs relative to that previous GBP 50 billion growth expectation? I also just wanted to ask one on the U.S. So thank you again for reconfirming the FX split for group and IB income and costs. I think that's helpful for us in thinking about the weaker dollar, but in the event that the U.S. administration applied some Section 899 taxes to U.K. companies, for instance, due to digital service tax proposals, how would we be best thinking about the possible impact of that for Barclays? Would it simply be a case of taking the country-by-country disclosures you give us and multiplying that percentage of PBT by the relevant incremental tax top-up? Or is there something more nuanced we need to do in terms of subsidiary financials and that sort of thing?

Thank you, Chris. I think there were at least 3 questions there. So I will attempt to deal with them in order. So on the IB RWAs, we remain fairly clear that the business should operate within the circa GBP 200 billion of RWAs that we've allocated to it. And you can see us doing that very, very consistently actually since '23. So we were doing it for some time before we even did the investor update. This period is no different, really. And you can see that nimbleness in RWA deployment in the first quarter. So if you look in the disclosures, you'll see that credit risk RWAs are down, market risk RWAs are up and counterparty credit risk RWAs are up. So our intention is to manage it nimbly within the framework that we have given them. And so to your second part of the question, which is really around the RWA shape from here, I mean I think the way we think about it, Chris, is that there is some uncertainty around the timing and the quantum of the regulatory impact, and we've given you our best view. That may happen at the beginning of '27 as opposed to the end of '26. But we don't feel that it undermines the fundamental objective of the plan. And the fundamental objective of the plan is to hold our RWAs in the IB broadly flat, as I've said, and to deploy RWA growth into our highest-returning U.K. businesses and that part of the plan, which is, if you like, is the most strategic part, remains intact. I think as the regulatory environment becomes clear and those timings become clearer, we can give you sort of exact splits and impacts of that. And then on the final part of your question, so what would a U.S. tax change mean for Barclays? Well, they're obviously short-term and long-term differences. So in the short term, what we would see for a rise in U.S. tax rates, for example, would be an increase in deferred tax assets. So you'd see a short-term boost to capital. And then obviously, you'd have a longer-term drag from any higher rates. It's a bit too early to give you precise guidance. We're expecting an initial U.S. tax bill in Q2. Some of the discussion that's happened around higher rates for non-U.S. firms, I mean, clearly hasn't been confirmed or firmed up into any kind of regulation yet. And I'd just remind you that the IHC is actually a U.S. firm, BB PLC branch isn't. So there is some nuances. You're exactly right within this that we'd have to guide to near at the time. So I think it's not quite as simple as looking at the country-by-country reporting, unfortunately.

The next question comes from Amit Goel from Mediobanca.

Thanks for that extra disclosure on USCB. I just want to check, I mean, obviously, the U.K. NII has been guided up. And the IB Q1 performance has been strong. So just thinking about the 11% RoTE guidance for this year, which has remained the same. So just curious, is that to reflect perhaps a bit more uncertainty in the environment? Or is it just a case of just not changing at this point or a bit more risk on that USCB part of the business? So number one, just I'm curious why the 11% hasn't changed as well? And then secondly, in terms of the hedge benefit beyond 2026, I think you're commenting obviously that it remains quite a strong tailwind. So I just wanted to double check the kind of roll-off yield that you're anticipating, say, in '27? We have about 2.5%, just wanted to check whether it's in the right kind of ballpark or whether you think actually the roll-off yield is a bit lower or a bit higher than that?

Okay. Thanks, Amit. I'll take both of those. So we've obviously seen a strong Q1, and that's coming through not only in the income line, but all the way through the P&L. So we've got good operating leverage, and we're pleased with that performance. But it's only the first quarter of the year. So all we've done is we've repeated our circa 11% guidance and are not signaling anything by repeating that guidance whether that be in income costs or impairments. So I'm merely repeating it. On the second question around the hedge benefit, we have said today that we expect the hedge momentum to continue beyond 2026. Why have we said that? Well, if I take you back to deposits and the stability of deposits, what that means now is that we expect the hedge notional to be broadly stable from here, and that actually takes one of the variables off the table. So all we're doing now is we are comparing, if you like, the prevailing swap with the yield on the hedge, whether that be the average yield or indeed the maturing yield. We haven't given any disclosure on maturing yield beyond '26, but I think if you do the simple math, which I know many of you have done and just take our planning assumption of 3.5% and push that through the maturing elements of '25 and '26, you will find that the average hedge yield in 2027 is below 3.5%. So that's really what we are signaling here. And obviously, as we get closer, we'll talk a bit more about maturing yields, but just a bit too far out for that. Hopefully, that's helpful.

The next question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

And apologies if you've already touched on this because I joined a bit late, was multi-tasking. On U.S. cards, you have the $40 billion receivables target you've maintained for 2026. I just wonder that with the sort of broader discussions around U.S. cycle, you obviously need to sign on new clients, new JVs on to get to that. Is it the right time and the right -- do you feel there's enough visibility to take on significant portfolios to achieve that $40 billion? Or would you need to wait, just to think about that, that sort of medium-term target? And then another one on the IB and on general activity, could you maybe give us a bit of color on how the Investment Bank has done during the quarter or maybe even April or by region? What I'm trying to get to is, obviously, Q1 is very good, but if volatility comes down, are we suddenly going to see a very quiet sort of performance? And how much of the activity you think -- how much visibility do you have on -- for the rest of the year? It's a difficult question, but any handholding or color would be much appreciated.

Yes, Alvaro. I'll start with cards, and we covered a little bit of this, but I'll go over it again, and then Anna will talk about the Investment Bank. So on the U.S. cards portfolio, look, the growth is going to come in net receivables from 3 things. One is organic growth in our existing portfolio. The second is how we choose to flex the lever that we have used of risk transfers. We can do more or less. And if we do less, the receivables are there on our book. And then the third thing is portfolio changes, which is new accounts or accounts leaving. So on the first one, which is organic growth. We're fairly comfortable that we will continue to see organic growth. And we have a very high credit quality portfolio. We're looking to diversify it among certain sectors, but it's a high credit quality portfolio. On the second one, which is risk transfer. That's always a question at the time of what capital benefit we get, what's the price at which we sell it and whether it suits our risk management. As you say, given that we've chosen not to bid for our portion -- for renewal of our portion of American, all else equal, we would want to keep things on our balance sheet. Third is acquisitions or other disposals. We've renewed a bunch of our other accounts through 2024. I think we've mentioned that in our previous full year earnings. And then we continue to look in this environment, even in this environment, especially in this environment at good quality portfolios that we think rounds out our business. These things are very long-term decisions. A typical portfolio takes 2 to 3 years to decide to bid and to come to you and then it's there with you for hopefully 7 years. So these are long-term decisions, and I wouldn't let the short-term stuff in the market affect that decision-making. Anna?

Thanks, Venkat. Alvaro, the only thing I'd add to that is that achieving the plan and the returns that we want in USCB is not just only volume either, we're working very hard on margins. We're working very hard on cost and digitization of the business and also the capital efficiency, as Venkat said, so a plan of many parts. Let me talk about the IB sort of generally in the quarter, and then I'll pass across to Venkat, you might want to add at the end. If you think about what should have happened to our IB in the quarter, given the volatility that we've seen, we should see strong markets revenues in the more subdued banking environment. And that's exactly the shape of our results, very much in line with the market more broadly. And as I look at Q1, in particular, we've been investing in this business for some time and investing to create a franchise that allows us in order -- allows us to perform in a range of environments, and you see that. So the FICC result is very strong, and I think that reflects our investment in securitized products. It reflects our investments in our rates businesses and equities is strong. Actually, you'll recall there was a one-off last year, but our equities position has been very much driven by the investments that we've made in the equity derivatives. So we feel like we're facing the market with a much more complete franchise. And of course, our financing business adds stability and is probably less impacted by volatility, but you can see good growth in there, that's obviously also underpinning FICC and equities. I said we would have expected the IB to be a bit softer. And of course -- or investment banking to be a bit softer in Q1. And of course, it has been, we feel that's, in line with the Street. And in fact, we've seen share gains across advisory, ECM, DCM and for the complex overall, albeit in a smaller market. And I'll just remind you that our planning assumption was for this market to be 10% down year-on-year, and that's broadly what we see in Q1. All of this has been underpinned by us being a bit more nimble in RWAs in the IB, as I've said. But we're really focused all the way through the P&L and the performance of the IB. So you see good cost control, and you will also see very, very good risk control. We've disclosed today for the first time consistently, both our VaR progression and indeed our loss days. And you can see we're not taking outsized risk. I should have actually mentioned also a very good performance within the ICB, the International Corporate Bank within banking. So financing and the ICB are both less sort of impacted by volatility. Venkat, do you want to comment?

Yes. I'll reemphasize what Anna said at the beginning, which is that if you see the first quarter results, you'll see the performance you would expect to see in the places you would expect to see them. And obviously, we can't talk about the second quarter. We don't, we're about a month into that. But again, reemphasize what Anna said on the market side. When there is volatility, we aim to put our clients first and to do intermediation and risk management for our clients. That is what we strive to do, and it can be profitable as long as you manage your own risks well, which is what we strive to do. And Anna gave you the data on the first quarter results of that. So that's what we strive to do every day. And on banking activity, people will wait for clarity until they resume. It could happen sooner than we think. But the overall business is pretty well diversified, whether you look at the investment bank, and you look at deposit growth in the International Corporate Bank, you look at the business in the International Corporate Bank, you look at markets or even the whole bank as -- Barclays as a whole.

The next question comes from Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs.

Two quick ones. So given the conservative banking wallet already embedded in your planning assumptions, which I guess you just referenced, are there any initiatives either on the cost side or the investment side that you would need to either undertake or delay should 2025 sort of indeed play out as per those wallet assumptions? That's the first question. And then second, you mentioned the substantial increase in transaction banking deposits in the U.S. How has that trended post quarter end? So if companies are maybe building liquidity, delaying some investment spend, are you seeing that show up in your deposit volumes?

Okay. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for the questions. I'll take the first one, and then I'll hand across to Venkat. Look, as I said, that was our assumption for banking. And actually, what we're seeing here is the diversification of income working really well across the bank, both in terms of more than offset by markets activity and also the strengths that we're seeing coming through in the U.K. and the U.K. complex more generally across deposits that's underpinned our upgrade today. So the revenue line appears to be very robust, and we have confidence in it. That said, that does not undermine our focus on costs. It's what we're doing every day. It's a key part of the strategy. You can see that all the way through the P&L today, income up by 11%, profits up by 19%. The plan is to create operating leverage, not just at the group but across every single business within the group. Overall, I still expect what I expected at the year-end, which is for incremental investment to underpin the longer-term growth of the plan and investment -- I'm sorry, inflation to outweigh our gross efficiencies for the year and for us to see an uptick in costs. All of that is contained within the most important cost metric, which is cost-income ratio at 61%. That is the number that we are most focused on. It's likely that we'll see some movement in absolute costs. I'm happy with consensus as it currently starts, but it is FX sensitive, and it is performance and volume sensitive. And therefore, I'd really urge you to focus on the cost-income ratio target that we've given. We feel like 57% in Q1 is a good down payment against that and should show you how focused we are on operating leverage. Venkat, transaction...

Yes. So on -- look, transaction banking has been an area of great emphasis for us in the last few years. We spoke about -- last year, we've spoken about it at our year-end earnings. People choose us and the quantum of deposits is based on 2 factors. One is the growth in our overall transaction banking business or relationship generally, people's choice of us as a counterparty, which is increasing. And then ultimately, their needs for cash and their use of cash. In this period, we continue to see happily people choosing us as a counterparty newly and that's good, and that's improving again. And then I think on cash, what you're seeing is growth in deposits in part what you would expect when people are being cautious on the deploying of cash for transactions. So you're seeing deposit growth, whether it's individuals or it's institutions, it's all what you would normally expect in this environment.

The next question today comes from Perlie Mong from Bank of America.

So just a couple of questions. One, just quickly touching on the U.S. cards margin. So obviously, that's been down, but you've talked about some of the drivers, some of the time lags between deposit pricing and asset pricing. Just -- and I know you've mentioned that the interest rate risk is already hedged. But I guess the market is pricing in faster and more rate cuts on the U.S. side for the rest of the year, maybe 3 or 4 rate cuts. So if that were to happen, I guess, is it already in your planning assumption? And if that were to happen, would you still expect the meaningful progression during 2025 as you've just talked about. So I guess that's number one. Number two, I guess, more broadly on the full year '26, greater than 12% return target. So consensus has just got to about 12%, taken a year to get there. I guess, the operating environment is arguably a little bit more challenging. Certainly, impairment looks like is it possible that it will go up given economic indicators coming down maybe a little bit. And I suppose, in general, U.S. dollar weakening is probably not super helpful either. So where do you see a gap between your planning assumption and where consensus is because you've reiterated guidance, so presumably, that you see maybe some positive to where consensus is currently, notwithstanding maybe a little bit of worsening in credit quality and maybe some FX impact as well. So just it would be helpful to understand where you think people might be too pessimistic.

Okay. Thank you, Perlie. So let me deal with the U.S. cards margin first. We've given you our macroeconomic variable assumptions, I think they're on Slide 35. So you can have a look at those. Obviously, we are expecting further downward pressure on Fed rates. You can see that from there. What I would just remind you, though, is that, that matter is hedged. So we've got floating rate assets, we've got largely fixed rate deposits. So you can see that we would have a timing difference in a downward rate environment. We do hedge that interest rate risk, but the nature of those hedges is different from the ones that we have in the U.K. and therefore, the accounting geography is different. So you do see an income offset, but it manifests itself on noninterest income. So if you look year-on-year, you're going to see noninterest income. So I'm not concerned about the income overall, but you might see a bit of a split geography between the margin compression and the hedge benefit, which obviously you wouldn't see in the U.K. And then if I step back and look at FY '26. Look, we've reiterated and reaffirmed our targets today. We feel like we've got momentum in the business, and we are delivering our plan. What you should expect us to do is execute the operational plan and deliver the numbers with no surprises, and that's no different in the current environment than it is last year or indeed the year before. So we're 100% focused on that. And we've clearly got good income growth. That comes from the diversification of the business. There's clearly a bit of a weak spot in investment banking, but markets, as Venkat's been through, benefits from periods of volatility. And very importantly, we are seeing a strong underpin here the upgrade of NII that we've given you, not just for BUK, but for the group as a whole, and that's coming from the strength of deposits in the U.K. Our costs are well controlled. Again, you can see we're focused on operating leverage. And whilst there's more uncertainty in the impairment line, Perlie, I would not see that uncertainty taking us out with the 50 to 60 basis point range that we've given you for loan loss rate. So we are confident in the delivery of our circa 11% this year and also the targets that we've given you for next year and that's the case for the financial targets and the distribution targets.

The next question comes from Andrew Coombs from Citigroup.

I just have a couple of follow-ups. Just firstly, on the fixed income result, very strong relative to peers. So any reason why there might be episodic revenues in that, or any additional seasonality compared to your peers? And if you could help us think about the breakdown between credit, securitized products, rates and FX, any color you can share would be helpful. And then the second question, just on your mortgage balances in the U.K. Obviously, you've been struggling to grow that for a while, but you've actually seen a very good result this quarter, up GBP 3 billion Q-on-Q. How sustainable do you think that is versus how much is that just a pull forward of activity in light of stamp duty changes?

Okay. Andy, I will start, Venkat may want to add on FICC. I mean, nothing much more than I would call out from before, just a strong performance across the board, reflects our investment in the business, both in intermediation and in financing, I called out rates, I called out securitized products. There are no one-offs in there. So where we take [ re-marks ] on LevFin positions, they are not in [ FICC. ] They are on our corporate lending line, and we've called that out separately. So I wouldn't call out any one-offs. So it's a good performance. On mortgages, the mortgage market was robust in Q1. As a market matter, approvals were up by 15%. Notably, within that house purchase is up by 20%, and that's not just house purchase but first-time buyers as well. We think -- both of those 2 are really good lead indicators. Sorry, my voice is going, let me take a drink of water. They are good indicators for the health of the mortgage market overall. If you step back, you've got rates that are broadly on the downward trend. You've got robust and stable house price inflation, and you've got real wage growth. So there may be a bit of pull forward in Q1, but honestly, the market as a whole is performing well.

The next question today comes from Edward Firth from KBW.

Yes, I just have 2 questions. Number one, U.K. fees look very weak. They're down, I think, 9% year-on-year, and they're certainly annualizing no more than about GBP 1 billion, I guess, that's in the U.K. business. So can you tell us a little bit about what's going on there? And how we should expect that going forward? Is the sort of GBP 250 million run rate we should be thinking about? Or is there something that we -- that was in there that means it might pick up as the rest of the year progresses? So I guess that's my first question. The second question is just coming back to risk-weighted assets because you talked about how the IB was broadly performing as you might expect in terms of trends in the first quarter. And I would agree with that completely, except for risk-weighted assets, which have always been up very strongly in the first quarter with all the volatility, you would have expected them to be up even more, I guess, I might have done. And yet they were down and down quite -- I know there's some FX in there, but even if you strip all that out, I think they were flat to down. So could you just tell us a little bit more about why that was? And is there potential to further reduce that going forward? And can I ask you -- you might have told us, so I apologize if I missed it, but I think you told us in one of the back slides, you say you've done GBP 57 billion, I think, of risk transfers at full year '24. Could you update us where we are on that? Is that where that number is now, is some of this about increasing risk transfers, et cetera, and how that might progress?

Okay. Ed, there was a lot in that. So let's try and answer it. I'll start, and then I'll hand to Venkat. So on U.K. non-NII, we've given you guidance previously for greater than GBP 250 million. I'd just repeat that guidance. This number can be a bit lumpy. There is no story within the Q1, beyond the fact that Q1 can sometimes be a bit light just because of lower transactional activity. And honestly, there's nothing more in there to read into. So I'd stick to the guidance of greater than GBP 250 million. On RWAs, you're right, there's a bit of FX in there that's taking it downwards. We haven't elevated the SRT. We've said before that the Colonnade program which is the one that impacts the IB is mature, and we do not expect to extend it. Venkat, do you want to comment beyond that?

Yes. I mean, look, I think we've targeted a level of stability in the Investment Bank's RWAs. You've got to expect quarter-on-quarter, and I've said this before, that there will be some volatility, right? A couple of billion up does not mean that we are loosening the figures, a couple of billion down does not mean we are tightening it up, right? There is a natural client activity. There's volatility in that activity. There are positions will get taken off, there are positions that get added or don't get added. As you might imagine, in this environment, the marginal benefit of the marginal allocation is more in markets than in banking based on activity, and that's what you saw in the first quarter.

Right -- so just to follow on from that then. So I mean, your Tier 1 is now at 13.9%. You've obviously right at the top end of your range, you're going to generate more capital, I guess, in the next quarter. I mean, there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing buybacks bigger than you've done in the past. Is that -- just to clarify that.

So our capital is at 13.9%, so it's towards the top end of our range. We did indicate at the full year that we did expect to operate towards the top half. And that was simply because we did expect an increase in the MDA, which has now come through. That said, why are we there? We're there because the strategy is working, and we're seeing very good capital generation from the business. That is the strategy. And if we keep executing the strategy, as we keep executing the strategy, it's not inconceivable that we might go through the top end of that range. But that's a good thing. We've given you guidance that we would expect distributions to be progressive this year. And we haven't changed our guidance that distributions will be at least GBP 10 billion over the period of the plan.

The next question today comes from Jonathan Price (sic) [ Jonathan Pierce ] from Jefferies.

I got a couple of questions. The first is a follow-up on Ed's question on capital. You came into this year at 13.6% equity Tier 1 ratio, 13.3% adjusting for the buyback. It does sound increasingly like you want to operate closer to 14% moving forward. Can I just confirm that, that is how we should be thinking about it? I'm just wondering whether there's an element of this related to the fact that U.K. RWA growth, your target for end of next year looks increasingly stretching and maybe you're thinking about some sort of inorganic bolt-on, which obviously would consume some capital in a one-off sense there. So that's the first question. The second question is on sensitivity again, particularly in the U.S. card book. If I look at your full year downside scenarios. Even on downside 2, which has got GDP falling over 1 percentage point this year and next year, unemployment moving to above 7%. The models are telling you that your required Stage 1 and 2 ECL build would only be about GBP 177 million, which feels very low given that set of macroeconomic assumptions. I mean, I guess the models are telling us what the models are telling us, but how robust do you think the models are, I guess, in COVID, IFRS 9 was quite new as it went behind years, we're 7 to 8 years in now. And this obviously applies across the group as well because the sensitivity to downside 1 and 2 scenarios is very limited given the severity of those. So comment on that would be useful.

Okay. Thanks, Jonathan. Okay. So let me start with capital. Venkat may want to comment on this also. You're right, we're generating a lot of capital, but as I said previously, that is an outcome of the plan, and it is intentional, it is deliberate, and it's what you should expect going forward. We did indicate at the full year that you should expect us to operate towards the top half. I'll just reiterate that as our formal guidance, but just reflecting on the fact that we are generating a lot of capital. And just on the utilization of that capital, we're very focused on deploying GBP 30 billion in the U.K. That plan is intact. As I look at where we are now, we've deployed GBP 14 billion of that, recognizing, of course, a large part of that has come from Tesco. But you can see good loan growth in the quarter, both from the U.K. and from the UK Corporate Bank. If I look at the specifics of lending, the consumer preference at the moment is for secured versus unsecured lending, that's very clear. That's okay. And then as I look at the lending as it's developing in the Corporate Bank and Private Banking and Wealth Management, actually it's very high quality, and that's reflective of our portfolios. So Q1, if I look at that in isolation, the lending is happening, maybe the RWA weighting is a little light. But over the period of the plan, that plan is intact. And I'd particularly point you to the momentum that we got both around mortgages and cards on the leading indicators on Slide 15. We're going through that J-curve in cards. You're going to see interest-earning lending and RWAs grow in cards from the back end of '25 with all of that maturing through. Venkat, do you want to comment more on RWAs?

No, look, I think Anna has covered it all. I'd also remind you of the environment in which we are. You would expect us to be on the general side of prudent in our capital.

Yes, absolutely. And then on the second point, I would take the disclosures on IFRS 9 as a sensitivity. They're not predictive. They essentially say, what happens if I take my current static balance sheet, and I pushed through a different set of macroeconomic variables. What it doesn't take into account is clearly the kind of stage migration that you would see into Stage 3. It doesn't take into account any increases of exposure at default. So the fact that customers may draw down as they become more financially pressed. But also the other thing that it doesn't take into account is credit actions that we might take in order to manage that position. So I wouldn't think of it as a scenario. I would think of it as a sensitivity, and it's quite a straightforward sensitivity. I don't think it's intended to be predictive. The same is true of the PMA that we've taken. That's really just a downside bias at this stage.

Our final question today comes from Robin Down from HSBC.

Just a couple of quickies for me. I think you kind of touched on this a little bit, Anna, in your last answer. But the Barclaycard consumer U.K. revenue line doesn't really seem to have made a great deal of progress over the last 12 months despite the kind of the big pickup in card acquisition numbers. Is that just a kind of lead lag effect? Does it kind of take 12 months for the sort of revenues to come through? Or is there's some other kind of trend in there, when you might expect to see kind of proper revenue growth in that line? And then the second question is more a clarification. I think Slide 8 talks about a 90% reinvestment rate on the structural hedge. I think you mentioned earlier that you expected the structural hedge to be stable. Is that 90% and stable? Is that just kind of a very broad definition of stable? Or how should we read that?

Okay. Thank you, Robin. Let me deal with those. So on the Barclaycard line, I mean, we stepped back into the credit card market in 2023. So all you are seeing here really is a production line of those cards acquisitions then maturing into interest-earning lending. Actually, if you think about the structure of the market, it tends to be slightly longer dated than 12 months. So you're going to see some pickup in interest-earning lending towards the back end of 2025, but the bulk of this is actually going to be in 2026. So it is a lead lag effect, as you suggest. And then on the second question, we've given you a planning assumption of circa 90%, but you can see given where deposits have been in the first quarter that the notional has been stable, and we would expect it to be broadly stable. But just for your planning math, that's why we said circa 90%, nothing more to read into it than that. Okay. So I think that brings us to the end of questions for today. And I'd like to thank you for those questions. Thank you for your continued interest in Barclays in what I know is a very busy day, and we will see you either on the road or at the analyst breakfast in a couple of weeks.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.