LONDON, April 6, 2026, 14:04 BST.
Barclays plans to expand its branch network in Britain and revive the “bank manager” title, UK chief executive Vim Maru told The Times, reversing years of retreat from the high street. The bank wants to grow beyond its 206 branches, a company results announcement showed. 1
The shift matters now because app-based rivals are moving further into everyday banking. Revolut won full approval last month to launch a British bank and can now compete directly with Barclays and other incumbents in current accounts – the accounts used for wages and bills – and consumer lending; Elliot Reader, a director in Houlihan Lokey’s fintech group, said the licence would “sharpen pressure” on both traditional banks and challengers. 2
Barclays is also less than four weeks from first-quarter results. In February, it said 2025 profit before tax rose 13% to 9.1 billion pounds and set a target for return on tangible equity – a measure of profit against shareholder capital – of more than 14% by 2028, while planning to return more than 15 billion pounds to shareholders over 2026-2028. The next update is due on April 28. 3
In remarks carried by the Press Association, Maru said Barclays wanted to be “great in digital” but also present when customers need help, adding they should not be “stuck in some chatbot” when trying to reach a person. “The branch manager or bank manager is back,” he said, arguing that many customers still value a physical presence. 4
Barclays has already been trying to soften the effect of earlier cuts. Its 2025 annual report said the bank extended opening hours across 86 branches, adding about 33,500 hours of in-branch availability a year, while a results filing showed the network stood at 206 branches at year-end. 5
The new tone marks a break with Barclays’ own recent history. Reporting over the weekend said the bank had shut nearly 80% of its branches since 2019, even as Maru argued the future lay in mixing digital service with face-to-face support as app-based rivals such as Revolut and Wise push further into the UK current-account market. 6
For Barclays PLC, the retail move sits inside a much bigger franchise. The group describes itself as a British universal bank spanning consumer banking, a corporate bank, private banking and wealth management, investment banking and a U.S. consumer bank. 7
But the shift brings obvious trade-offs. More branch investment means more fixed costs just as Barclays is trying to lift returns, and it comes as the Financial Conduct Authority has put the motor finance redress bill for the industry at about 9.1 billion pounds, with Barclays among the lenders affected. 8
Whether the branch push deepens customer relationships without eating into returns should become clearer at the April 28 update. For now, Barclays is making a blunt bet that the counter still matters, even after years in which much of the industry treated it as expendable. 9
