Barclays ups staff as it seeks to woo the wealthy

Barclays is hiring 100 new staff at its private bank as it chases the über-wealthy.

This will be at least the second time in recent years when Barclays has sought to increase its share of the market for millionaires.

In 2010, Barclays launched a five-year scheme called Project Gamma as it sought to boost profits from looking after the rich, but it was regarded as a failure.

It missed its growth targets and the private-banking arm was folded into the wealth-management business in 2014.

Barclays now says it will hire “relationship managers” in Geneva, Monaco, India, Dubai, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It won’t say how many people work for the private banking arm.

That move echoes similar moves by rivals, convinced that there is money to be made from servicing a rising number of millionaires.

The ramp-up of private banking comes as Barclays seeks to distract attention from an embarrassing email foul-up involving chief executive Jes Staley. He replied to a prank email he thought was from chairman John McFarlane, telling him “you are a unique man Mr McFarlane”.

Barclays said earlier it has tightened its email security.