Barclays will pump £1bn ($1.5bn) in its retail
banking division over the next four years in an effort to re-focus
attention on retail and away from its investment banking unit.

The bank, the UK’s second largest bank by
assets, is also expecting strong profit growth and is targeting a
return on equity of 13-15% between 2010 and 2013, according to the
bank’s head of global retail banking Antony Jenkins.

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To reach the target the bank will invest
around £250m a year for the next four years, introduce new
technology and complete its UK branch refurbishment programme.

Half of the bank’s total 17,000-branch network
has been upgraded in the last three years. 

Jenkins also drew attention to the success of
Barclay’s mobile banking, and claimed it has built a market leading
position by attracting half a million visits to the UK m-banking
website and issuing 8 million contactless cards.

Barclays recently
revamped its m-banking service one year on from launch after
reaching more than 4 million hits a month.  

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Jenkins said that as the role of the branch
moves from transactional to customer-orientated where the internet
and mobile play a bigger part, the bank was at a “fork in the
road”.

“We can go on optimising what we currently do, or we can take
advantage of these changes. I’m confident that we’re better placed
than others to take advantage, thanks to the strength of our brand,
our scale, and our track record. Over the next few years we want to
move from being a ‘me-too’ bank to being the ‘go-to’ bank,” he
said.