BCS Barclays PLC

BARCLAYS PLC

Ex-Officer Faces Ban on Senior Positions

A U.K. regulator has proposed banning Andrew Tinney, a former top executive at Barclays PLC's wealth division, from holding senior financial posts for allegedly hiding an internal report that detailed severe cultural failings at the unit.

The Financial Conduct Authority said that Mr. Tinney, who was chief operating officer of Barclays Wealth & Investment Management, should be prevented from holding any senior position at a financial company. Mr. Tinney, who had the Barclays job between 2010 and 2012, is disputing the FCA's finding, the regulator said.

"I do not accept that any of my actions can be construed as misconduct," a statement issued on behalf of Mr. Tinney said.

In 2012 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Barclays to fix regulatory failings at its U.S. wealth unit. The FCA said Mr. Tinney hired a consultant to look at how "tone at the top" influenced Barclays Wealth America.

The FCA said that upon receiving the highly critical report, Mr. Tinney took actions to ensure that no one else could read it, didn't put it on a computer and told the consultant that it didn't need to circulate a copy. Instead he discussed the report's findings with his boss and made plans to address some of the failings at a workshop with bank staff, the FCA said.

A whistleblower contacted Barclays's chairman to say the report had been suppressed. In December, Barclays received a report from the consultant, and Mr. Tinney was suspended. He then resigned.

A tribunal will rule on whether the FCA's plan to ban Mr. Tinney should be upheld. Until then, no further action will be taken. The FCA said the timing of the report, which coincided with a major review of the bank after it admitted to having tried to rig interbank lending rates in 2012, made Mr. Tinney's actions particularly inappropriate.

The regulator said Mr. Tinney did try to address some of the shortcomings highlighted in the report by organizing briefings and a workshop with staffers.

Barclays didn't respond to requests for comment.

--Max Colchester

CITIGROUP

Trading Revenue Above Expectations

Citigroup Inc. said its trading revenue is performing above expectations so far in the third quarter.

Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach, speaking at a financial-services conference, said trading revenue would be up by mid-single percentage from a year earlier, driven by strength in rates and currencies. Trading includes Citigroup's large fixed-income division and smaller equities division.

But trading revenue will be down slightly from the second quarter, Mr. Gerspach said. Banks including Citigroup reported big jumps in second-quarter trading revenue over the summer, fueled partly by uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote in June.

Mr. Gerspach also said investment banking so far had been "lighter than estimated." The bank's investment-banking revenue fell in the second quarter as well, hurt then by a drop in equity underwriting.

In consumer banking, Mr. Gerspach said he expected revenue to increase in Asia and Mexico, two areas where Citigroup plans to keep growing its consumer-banking operations even as it pulls back elsewhere.

Mr. Gerspach also spoke favorably of the bank's new credit-card partnership with Costco Wholesale Corp. Mr. Gerspach acknowledged initial difficulties, including extra costs associated with ensuring that "customers were served the way we thought they deserved to be served." But he said that the partnership had already resulted in new accounts and sales that were above the bank's expectations.

--Christina Rexrode

HSBC HOLDINGS

Hong Kong Rebukes Unit Over Controls

Hong Kong's securities regulator fined and reprimanded an Asian unit of HSBC Holdings PLC for an internal-controls failure related to position limits.

The Securities and Futures Commission fined Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. 2.5 million Hong Kong dollars (US$322,000) for the misconduct, which the regulator said took place in 2014.

The regulator said HSBC breached the position limits for Hang Seng China Enterprises Index futures and options contracts and hadn't implemented "adequate measures to ensure compliance" with the limits.

A spokesman for HSBC said the bank apologized for the breaches and has cooperated fully with the securities regulator. HSBC "has taken actions to improve our internal controls regarding our compliance with the prescribed position limits in Hong Kong," he said.

The Securities and Futures Commission over the past year has focused on internal controls at banks.

--Julie Steinberg

CHINA BANKING

Home Buying Sparks Increase in Lending

Bank lending soared last month in China from a two-year low in July, with a large share of the new credit going to people buying new homes, according to central-bank data.

Economists said outsize mortgage lending, combined with weak corporate-loan demand, continued a pattern of recent months and portrayed an economy that, while growing, may not be doing so in a sustainable way.

"The pattern in new credit over the past few months is unchanged," said Ma Xiaoping, an economist with HSBC Holdings PLC. Investment outside the property market is mainly being led by the government, she said.

The figures from the People's Bank of China showed that Chinese financial institutions issued 948.7 billion yuan ($142.07 billion) of new loans in August, more than double July's 463.6 billion yuan and well above the level expected by economists.

New lending to households reached 675.5 billion yuan last month, a nearly 50% increase from July, according to the data. Of that sum, medium- and long-term household loans, predominantly mortgage lending, stood at 528.6 billion yuan, accounting for more than half of the new loans issued in August. In July, almost all of the new credit was mortgage lending.

Meanwhile, medium- and long-term loans to nonfinancial corporate borrowers dropped by 8 billion yuan last month, compared with an increase of 151.4 billion yuan in July, the data showed.

--Liyan Qi

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 15, 2016 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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