British bank Barclays Plc posted first-half profit ahead of forecasts on Friday as revenue growth more than made up for rising bad debt charges, sending its shares up. Pretax profit for the six months ended June 30 increased 9 percent to 2.69 billion pounds ($4.8 billion), the UK's third-biggest bank said, rounding off results for Britain's big commercial lenders amid concern about the slowing economy.
The average analyst forecast from 10 polled by Reuters was for profit of 2.43 billion pounds, though estimates were complicated by a move to new IFRS accounting rules.
Total income rose 14 percent to 7.92 billion pounds, boosted by growth at the Barclays Capital investment bank, with costs rising at the same rate.
"We have delivered what we said we would deliver," Chief Executive John Varley told reporters on a conference call. "We have got very strong profit growth in a number of our businesses."
Barclays is trying to increase growth by spending on expansion of its international businesses, including Barclays Capital and credit cards, to diversify away from the UK. The bank recently took control of South African bank Absa.
Barclays is the last of Britain's big five lenders to report first-half results. The main issue at the start of reporting season was rising retail bad debts after rising interest rates and household bills caused consumers to feel the pinch.
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