Barclays sets up academy

London - Barclays has created a Compliance Career Academy in partnership with Cambridge University to improve staff training in an attempt to restore its reputation after a series of scandals.

Barclays was the first bank to be fined for the alleged rigging of benchmark interest rates, which resulted in a $450m fine and cost Bob Diamond, the bank's CEO at the time, his job. It was fined $44.24m in May this year for manipulating gold prices and last week New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit alleging fraud in its "dark pool" trading venue.

Barclays chair David Walker said the new training would ensure that compliance staff could go a step further and mentor traders and other colleagues to improve culture and behaviour.

Sales staff

"Compliance has not been seen as a serious enough specialist activity," Walker said.

"Our track record in culture has not been good. It's important for us all to have a concept of culture, conduct and compliance."

Compliance officers, along with internal auditors, have long been seen as vulnerable to pressure from sales staff not to put too much grit in the profit-making machine.

Walker acknowledged this was an issue in the past, saying that "soft risks" like avoiding reputational damage were the hardest of all to deal with.

"One way of seeing it is that we are guilty until we prove ourselves to be innocent," Walker said.

Drop in profits

Bankers have been vilified in the press and by shareholders and politicians for getting huge bonuses despite the regulatory scandals.

More than a third of Barclays' shareholders failed to back the bank's compensation plan at its annual shareholder meeting this year, angered by a 10% rise in 2013 bonuses despite a one-third drop in profits.

The new compliance programme will be taught in partnership with the Cambridge Judge Business School.