(Image Source: Sky News)  BY KATIE BRENNAN
 Barclays Bank will axe 3,700 jobs this
year in hopes of reducing annual costs by
1.7 billion pounds, or about $2.6 billion.
Sky News reports new CEO Anthony Jenkins has
more than just the balance sheet in mind.  “Anthony
Jenkins wants to change the culture of the
bank. Away from what he calls the barrow-boy
investment banking greed scenario to a bank
of trust that everybody goes to.”  That’s
not an easy feat. The restructuring comes
after a series of scandals under former CEO
Bob Diamond. A member of the UK Parliament
told Bloomberg he doesn’t think Jenkins’
new plan will do enough.  “I think Barclay’s
have got a lot to prove with these things.
I don’t think today does the job. And I
think they’ve got a lot more to do to achieve
the culture change that they say that they
want to see.”  And Oliver Ralph of the
Financial Times told CNBC Europe some thought
Jenkins would make even more radical changes
to the bank.  “There was I suppose a
question mark about whether he would try to
split off the investment bank from the retail
bank. There was some political pressure to
do that //WHITE FLASH// as its happened they’ve
not done that they have made some changes
but really kept the structure intact.”  Some
parts more intact than others, though. The
investment banking division will shrink 8
percent this year. The restructuring plan
comes as Barclays posted a $1.3 million loss
in the final quarter of last year — a huge
fall compared to the more than a half a billion
dollars in profit it made in 2011’s fourth
quarter. 
