Barclays Performance

A revised Board Diversity and Inclusion Policy was adopted in February 2024.

In December 2024, the Board reaffirmed the gender and ethnic diversity targets set out in the Policy for 2025.

Building an inclusive and equitable culture, reflecting a diversity of views and backgrounds, where all colleagues can thrive is a business priority.

At the end of 2024, 30%Δ of the Managing Director and Director populations were female.

We achieved this two years ahead of time, and as a result, reset and increased our ambition.

The Board Diversity and Inclusion Policy is designed to ensure that all Board appointments and succession plans are based on merit and objective criteria, recognising the benefits of diversity, in all its forms, and that due regard is given to diversity and inclusion characteristics when considering Board Committee appointments.

Improving and sustaining our operational performance is crucial to the delivery of our strategy.

We are two years into our Consistently Excellent culture change programme with an ambition to operate at the highest level and avoid errors across the firm.

Across the bank we are simplifying and digitising processes.

It continues to be embedded through the Group-wide multi-year Consistently Excellent culture change programme.

In 2024, our focus has been supporting colleagues from understanding what it means to deliver to a higher standard to putting it into practice every day, with a focus on strengthening risk management and controls.

We have rolled out Consistently Excellent workshops which have been completed by almost 60,000 colleagues, and we’ve also launched new risk and control focused training.

Since 2023, Barclays has supported more than 10,000 businesses through our sustainable growth and innovation programmes.

Through our Unreasonable Impact programme, we support high-growth entrepreneurs around the world to address global issues and scale their businesses, offering them a network, resources and mentorship.

348 ventures have been supported so far, collectively raising over $14bn in financing, and employing more than 31,000 people.

In 2024, we launched the Veteran and Military Spousal Founders programme, supporting 71 entrepreneurs in the armed forces community.

Barclays is championing innovation and sustainable growth through programmes that unlock the world of finance, enabling businesses and economies to grow.

After removing duplicates to account for repeat users, in 2024 we supported a further 4,614 businesses through these programmes, demonstrating Barclays’ continued commitment to providing a connected pathway of support for start-ups and scale- ups at every stage of their growth journey.

Creating a Simpler, Better and More balanced Barclays is a major undertaking.

We are one year into our three-year plan.

At the heart of achieving our plan to make Barclays Simpler, Better and More balanced are our c.93,000 colleagues.

The Board considered how a Simpler organisational structure would reduce complexity and how these new reporting segments would give investors greater transparency to assess performance, including the undiscovered value and growth drivers of the Group.

In support of a More balanced organisation, the Board considered key strategic M&A transactions, including the sale of the German consumer finance business, the sale of the Italian mortgage portfolios, and the acquisition of Tesco Bank.

The Board also challenged what the strategy means to each business or function and the actions being taken to become Simpler, Better and More balanced.

Barclays LifeSkills has been delivering positive impact in communities for over a decade, helping millions of people develop the vital employability and financial skills they need to succeed at work and better manage their money.

Barclays aims to upskill 8.7 million people and place 250,000 people into work through the LifeSkills programme from 2023 to 2027.

Our Digital Eagles programme has upskilled 813,877 people in 2024, enabling people to become more confident with technology and stay safe online.

Barclays is delivering skills and employment opportunities for people in the communities where we operate.

After removing duplicates to account for repeat users, we upskilled a further 2.77 million people in 2024 through Barclays LifeSkills, Digital Eagles and Military and Veterans Outreach, growing the total to 6.05 million since the beginning of 2023 and demonstrating good momentum across Barclays’ community programmes.

The Committee’s focus in 2024 has been on ensuring that the Board, Board Committees and ExCo continue to have the right composition of skills, experience, knowledge and diversity of thought, as well as on robust succession planning, to support the delivery of the Group’s strategy as announced at the Investor Update on 20 February 2024.

In addition, Board related succession matters are typically discussed at Board level, with the Board having received regular updates on the skills-based Non- Executive Director recruitment priorities during the course of the year.

In July 2024, we welcomed Brian Shea to the Boards of Barclays and BX (our Group-wide service company).

He assumed the role of Chair of BX in January this year, as part of our longer-term succession planning following Diane Schueneman’s retirement from the Board.

In September 2024, Dr Mohamed El-Erian stepped down from our Board.

We have also engaged with investors and wider stakeholders on climate and sustainability, focusing on topics such as climate risk, nature and biodiversity and the effectiveness of our climate policy.

Stakeholders have been keen to see evidence of the impact of our engagement with clients in their respective transitions, through the implementation of policy, as well as the facilitation of sustainable and transition financing.

The Group CEO continues to play an active role with stakeholders.

This includes, in 2024, taking up position as as the Chair of the Financial Services Task Force (FSTF) as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative.

The FSTF brings together CEOs from across the global banking sector, focusing on how to effectively mobilise capital at scale and support the transition to net zero.

At a community level, Barclays has continued its long-standing contribution to that work through our LifeSkills programme, which has been supporting individuals to build employability and financial skills for more than a decade.

There is a clear opportunity for us to support financial capability on a broader front, with expertise and insight to improve numeracy, financial literacy and other core skills essential to grow the economy.

Our support for sport is another demonstration of how we engage with communities.

Barclays’ partnerships with the Premier League, the Barclays Women’s Super League and Lord’s Cricket Ground help to generate more active involvement in sport.

As do the grassroots sports programmes we support which are building skills and confidence to uplift and strengthen communities.

Treasury and Capital risk is identified and managed by specialists in capital, liquidity and asset and liability management teams.

A range of risk management approaches are used such as limits plan monitoring and stress testing.

Capital risk is predominantly assessed and controlled on a forward-looking basis through the means of capital forecasts and capital plans.

Key capital risks must be identified well in advance to allow for mitigating actions to be agreed and become effective.

Pension risks are monitored regularly and reported to relevant stakeholders and committees to support discussions with the relevant pension fund’s actuaries and trustees.

Barclays generates c.40% of its revenue in US dollars.

The United States is a country more willing to embrace growth and risk, reflected for instance in US dominance in the technology sectors.

Our presence there is substantial and our commitment to US customers and clients longstanding.

That is a real strength and differentiator amongst the non-US large bank community.

The US is also a unique and competitive market, reflected in its approach to remuneration which we need to be mindful of as we prioritise the acquisition and retention of talent across our businesses.

This outcomes-based regulation is designed to ensure relevant financial services firms deliver good outcomes for retail customers.

During 2024 the Board has overseen the work of the BBPLC and BBUKPLC boards through receiving regular updates, providing oversight of embedment of the Consumer Duty across the organisation for in-scope products and services, and implementation for 'closed products' (those products that have not been marketed or distributed to customers after 31 July 2023).

In July 2024 the BBPLC and BBUKPLC Boards, supported by their respective Board Consumer Duty Champions, considered and approved the reports, concluding that the strategy, Purpose and ambition of the Group is aligned with the Consumer Duty.

The reports have supported the Board’s assessment of the implementation of Consumer Duty and our consistently excellent standard, with customer outcomes being a key lens and core pillar of the strategy.

We are supporting climate tech having invested £65m of our own capital last year, and provide active backing for innovation through our network of Eagle Labs and partnerships with incubators such as Sustainable Ventures.

More broadly, we continue to see strong client demand for finance and advisory services from our Energy Transition Group from both sides of the Atlantic.

At the same time we recognise the complexity of addressing the climate challenge whilst also supporting a successful and growing economy with affordable energy, especially as we see increasing policy divergence.

We intend to publish the Barclays Transition Plan later this year to provide more detail on our path forward and on where we can work with others around the opportunities and dependencies for progress.