Barclays





In Section 1:


Introduction Chairman's Statement Group Chief Executive's Statement Financial Performance Group Finance Director The Leadership Team
	Our capital position is strong. We have a double A credit rating, which is one of the highest and most stable ratings in the banking sector. Our policy is to maintain this rating with good ratios and an appropriate capital mix. At the end of 2002, our risk asset ratio was 12.8%, our tier 1 capital ratio was 8.2% and our tier 1 equity ratio (being the relationship between shareholders’ funds including minority interests and net of goodwill on the one hand and weighted risk assets on the other) was 6.6%. Our ability to pay increased dividends is dependent on good financial performance and effective capital management. In 2002, we increased the dividend by 10% (the total payment to shareholders for calendar 2002 will amount to Ł1.2 billion) and a further Ł546 million was spent in the repurchase of our shares, which has the effect of increasing earnings per share over time. Earnings generation by the Group continued to exceed what was required to sustain business growth. We regard our buyback programme, along with dividend payments, as an efficient way of deploying surplus capital. We believe that our economic capital principles create advantage for us as we prepare for the implementation of Basel II. This is the new regulatory capital regime for banks which is expected to be introduced by the authorities in 2006. In 2002, Barclays absorbed the full impact of a difficult environment and still produced a return on equity of 15%. In doing so, we demonstrated the strong defensive characteristics of our portfolio of businesses. Those same businesses are well positioned for growth in the years ahead. John Varley Group Finance Director	Click to go to each page