About Barclays Group

Barclays is a major global financial services provider. Our aim is to provide products and services that help our customers and clients achieve their goals in life. As well as banking for personal and business customers, we offer wealth management, asset management and investment banking services.

With over 300 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in more than 50 countries and employs some 155,000 people. We move, lend, invest and protect money for more than 48 million customers and clients worldwide.

We do so through two ‘Clusters’: Global Retail Bank (GRB), and Barclays Corporate, Investment Banking and Wealth Management (CIBWM), each of which has a number of Business Units.

There are two other major areas of the business: Group Centre and Absa. Group Centre is our head office and support functions operation. The Absa Group is one of South Africa's largest financial services businesses.
 
Our strategy is to achieve good growth over time by diversifying our business base and increasing our presence in markets and segments that are growing rapidly. In the tough year of 2008 this strategy still generated a £6,077 million profit before tax.