Barclays is tightening its lending criteria to a UK economy that is lagging behind the rest of the world, with Barclays chief executive Jes Staley sating that “Brexit uncertainty was helping to stunt economic growth”, which the bank “could not ignore”.
Whilst speaking to the BBC, Staley said: “we have to be mindful of weaknesses in the economy and we have protect the integrity of the bank.
“In no way do we pull back in a radical fashion - but we will look at our credit exposures and see whether that's proper given the direction of the economy.
“We can at the margin tighten some of our underwriting criteria and credit standards just to be prudent for the stability of the bank.”
Though the UK economy is still growing, it is very low, only increasing by 1.2 per cent in the past year. In comparison, the US economy has grown by 2.2% while the Eurozone has experienced growth of 2.5%.
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