LONDON, April 7, 2026, 13:10 (BST)
Barclays PLC has snapped up about £525 million worth of its own shares since February, according to stock exchange filings published Tuesday—pushing its current buyback program past the halfway point. The bank reported buying back 125.1 million shares, paying an average price of 419.3663 pence each, and said those shares are set to be cancelled.
Barclays has now crossed the halfway mark on its £1 billion buyback, announced alongside full-year earnings Feb. 10. Investors have been watching closely, since that buyback came with a pledge to hand back more than £15 billion to shareholders from 2026 to 2028—making capital returns a key part of the bank’s pitch.
Barclays will release its first-quarter numbers on April 28. Back in February, the bank reported a 12% jump in 2025 pretax profit to £9.1 billion, and also raised its 2028 return on tangible equity target—now aiming for above 14%.
The lender rolled out the current buyback alongside a final dividend of 5.6 pence, pushing this year’s capital distribution tied to 2025 up to 3.7 billion pounds. Barclays pointed to higher income and lower costs as levers for boosting returns.
Barclays disclosed in Tuesday’s filing that it picked up 5.92 million shares on March 30 and another 4.58 million on April 2, part of a four-day run of purchases from March 30 to April 2. With the cancellations factored in, the bank’s issued share capital drops to 13.7177 billion shares.
Barclays isn’t the only bank making moves. Lloyds rolled out a £1.75 billion buyback alongside its January results. NatWest followed in February, disclosing a £750 million repurchase. Britain’s listed lenders are ratcheting up payouts and pressing on tougher profitability goals.
That comparison isn’t trivial—Barclays’ ambitions are tightly linked to the U.S. Analysts speaking to Reuters back in February said the bank’s ability to hit its fresh targets will largely ride on what happens stateside, where Barclays books between 50% and 60% of its investment-banking income and is expanding its consumer card operation.
Still, leaning so much on the U.S. cuts both ways. Back in January, Hargreaves Lansdown’s Matt Britzman pegged Barclays’ U.S. card business at about 11% of the group’s profits. Then in February, Finance Director Anna Cross said the bank had “a number of levers” to soften the blow from a potential 10% U.S. cap on credit card rates. Private credit jitters persist. That same month, Reuters flagged Barclays as one of the lenders on the hook after the collapse of UK mortgage provider Market Financial Solutions. “We’re starting to continue to see these types of things pop up, which is definitely a problem,” Themis Trading’s Joe Saluzzi commented after the news broke. More recently, Reuters said Barclays started scaling back some asset-based lending to smaller clients, responding to losses tied to MFS and Tricolor. Reuters
