The British bank on Tuesday reported pretax profit in the six months to the end of June of 2.64 billion pounds, down 33 percent from a year ago but above the average forecast of 2.4 billion pounds of analysts polled by the company.

Barclays Capital's half-year profit fell 9 percent on the year and income at the investment banking arm was down 11 percent to 6.26 billion pounds, led by a fall in fixed income revenue. The bank also took a 1 billion pound charge to cover compensation for the mis-selling of insurance policies in Britain, which had been signalled previously.

Copyright Reuters, 2011