Barclays slides into quarterly loss

Barclays fell into a third-quarter net loss, the banking group said Friday, after setting aside further significant sums to compensate customers mis-sold the controversial insurance product PPI. The UK lender posted a loss after tax of £292 million ($375 million, 338 million euros) for the three months to September 30. That compared with a net profit of £1.05 billion in the third quarter of 2018, Barclays added in a statement.

Barclays said it had taken a hit of £1.4 billion to cover last-minute claims regarding a UK-wide practise of mis-selling payment protection insurance (PPI) over a number of years. Taking into account the latest provisions, Barclays has set aside £11 billion to cover PPI claims, it said. Royal Bank of Scotland has also said it suffered a net loss of £315 million in the third quarter over the same issue.

While PPI was intended to cover missed payments, for example if a policy holder lost their job, in many cases consumers were unaware the insurance had been added to a product, while others would never have benefitted despite being pressured into taking it.