UK’s Barclays (BARC) granted Australian banking licence
By Jenni Reid
11:56, 20 December 2021
British bank Barclays has been granted a banking licence by Australian regulators.
Barclays said it plans to launch as a foreign bank in the country in April 2022 with a Sydney branch after being approved as an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI).
“Australia presents tremendous growth opportunities and is an important financial services market in the region,” said Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays Asia Pacific.
“This foreign ADI license reinforces our commitment to Australia and enables us to proactively serve our clients with our global Corporate and Investment Bank platform, supporting their cross-border growth ambitions even further.”
Overseas growth
The bank already has a presence in the Australian leveraged finance market, and said it was “amongst the strongest banks for offshore capital markets issuance”.
Australian operations, which were re-launched by the bank in 2018, will continue to be led by country chief executive Richard Satchwell.
“Barclays has built momentum steadily in our business over the past few years. We announced our strategic investment in Barrenjoey Capital Partners in September 2020, and are already seeing results of the investment with a strong pipeline of transactions one year on,” Satchwell said.
Like other banks looking for more revenues amid persistently low interest rates, Barclays has been boosting its high-growth overseas operations.
Earlier this year it announced $404m in funding for its Indian division, where it wants to develop its Corporate and Investment Banking and Private Clients businesses, targeting India’s high and ultra-high net worth individuals.
It also operates in China/Hong Kong SAR, Japan and Singapore.