Sharp fall in Barclays Bank profits

The CEO of Barclays Bank, Antony Jenkins, accepted his first bonus since taking office three years ago despite a sharp drop in profits at the investment arm, and the prospect of a fine for for rigging foreign exchange markets.

The British bank announced an adjusted pre-tax profit of 5.5 billion pounds last year, up from 4.9 on the previous year and slightly better than analysts’ forecasts.

But when charges and provision for restructuring costs are taken into account pretax profits fell 21 percent to 2.3 billion pounds.

The bank has also set aside 750 million pounds for future fines.

In November UK and US regulators fined six banks a total of 2.6 billion pounds for trying to manipulate foreign exchange rates.