The British lender has been re-building its Asian business after a global restructuring in 2016, which took a heavy toll on its operations in the region, leading to job cuts, exits from many markets and the shutdown of its Asian cash-equities unit.
Barclays, which recently made big investments in India and Australia and set up a Taiwan subsidiary in July, is evaluating entering new markets but is focused on building up its franchises.
The macroeconomic environment is also not one that really favours aggressive investment now.
The bank mainly caters to corporate and institutional clients in Asia and has hired about a dozen senior executives over the past two years to beef up its investment bank, markets unit and private banking business.
While Barclays’ corporate and investment bank was the smallest in Asia among 12 global banks in the six months to June, it showed the biggest revenue jump of 28%, Barclays said, citing data from industry tracker Coalition Greenwich.
This year, Barclays was among the three lead underwriters for Indian conglomerate Adani Group’s multi-billion-dollar deal to buy Holcim’s cement businesses.
Barclays said it was investing more than $400 million in its Indian unit. The country is also home to Barclays’ global services center, where it employs more than 21,000 – its second-largest number of staff outside of Britain.