Barclays will speed trading cuts, Financial Times report

Barclays Plc will accelerate cuts to its investment bank as the lender exits most trading operations outside its core U.S. and U.K. markets, the Financial Times reported. Jes Staley, the former JP Morgan Chase & Co. investment banker who is likely to become Barclays’s chief executive officer early next year, supports the plan and will focus on New York and London operations, the FT said on Saturday, citing people it didn’t identify. The bank is exiting trading in continental Europe, Asia and Latin America, the report said. Staley, a director at UBS Group AG, admires the Swiss bank’s efforts to shrink its capital-intensive trading businesses, the FT said. Separately, Mediobanca SpA has approached Barclays with an offer for its Italian consumer banking network, the FT said. Will Bowen, a Barclays spokesman, declined to comment on the newspaper report.