Barclays reported a 47 percent jump in first-quarter pre-tax profits to £1.82b, driven by strong performance at its investment bank and a fall in bad debts.   The “improvement that we have seen in impairment, reflects the signs of economic recovery not evident in many of the markets in which we operate,” said John Varley, chief executive, said in an interim management statement.

Bad debts fell 35 percent to £1.5b in the first three months of 2010 compared with the same quarter last year.   Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm, accounted for 80 percent of group profits.
Earnings at BarCap jumped 62 percent to £1.47b due to strong trading in fixed income, currencies and commodities.
However, shares in the bank fell nearly 5 percent in early trading due to disappointment at revenue growth at BarCap, where revenue fell 26 percent to a worse-than-expected £3.85b.
Britain's second biggest bank also reported a 20pc rise in profits in UK retail banking to £238m as customer saved more. However, global retail banking earnings fell 6 pewrcent to £403m as Barclaycard and retail operations in Western Europe struggled.
The bank's solid performance is likely to drown out any protest about pay at its annual meeting.
Pirc, the investor body, has urged shareholders to vote against “potentially excessive” awards to its executives on the grounds that the bank is not providing enough information to assess whether the targets are challenging.
Pirc pointed out that Bob Diamond, head of the investment bank, has an award scheme that will potentially earn him 2,400 percent of his £250,000 salary.
Despite Pirc's warning, the Association of British Insurers has approved the remuneration report and investors are expected to support it.
Mr. Diamond and John Varley, chief executive, waived their bonuses last year.
Unlike U.S. rivals, BarCap will not break out the pay and bonuses awarded to its 23,000 investment bankers. They earned an average of £191,000 each last year.
In total, the City bonus pool for 2009 was £6b and is expected to rise to £6.8b this year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
BarCap's substantial contribution to the overall profitability of Barclays is put down to the combination of the $1.85b acquisition of Lehman's U.S. business in September 2008 as well as investment in areas such as risk management in the group beforehand.
According to sources close to BarCap, the integration of the Lehman parts such as the U.S. equities as well as the fixed income and advisory businesses were integrated into BarCap by the end of 2008.
Since the acquisition of Lehmans' U.S. business BarCap has concentrated on building an equity capital markets (ECM) business which it will seek to make a global top-three player in the next five years.
(Source: Daily Telegraph)