Barclays sets aside extra £700m for PPI claims as profits soar

Barclays has earmarked an additional £700 million to meet payment protection insurance (PPI) compensation claims, the lender has announced.

Extra funds will cover costs and refunds in the ongoing saga over the mis-selling of PPI.

But PPI has not stopped Barclays's group pre-tax profits leaping 13% over the past six months, second quarter figures show - largely a result of major corporate restructuring.

The announcement comes just a day after Lloyds Banking Group revealed it was also setting aside an extra £700 million to deal with PPI.

So far, the spiralling cost of the scandal has reached more than £18 billion.

Lloyds has also put also hundreds of millions of pounds to tackle PPI. Credit: PA

New figures released on Friday showed that Barclays's core profits before tax had slipped by 25% to £2.98 billion because of the extra PPI provision.

However, the lender's pre-tax profits for the six months ending in June still managed to surge by 13% to £2.34 billion.

These figures follow a restructuring which saw Barclays focus more on its core UK and US business.

Chief executive Jes Staley said: "Our business is now radically simplified, the restructuring is complete, our capital ratio is within our end-state target range, and, while we are also working to put conduct issues behind us, we can now focus on what matters most to our shareholders: improving group returns."

Factoring in a £1.4 billion loss on the sale of 33.7% of Barclays Africa Group, and a further £1.1 billion charge linked to the disposal, the bank recorded an attributable loss of £1.2 billion for the half-year, however.