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Good morning. It's great to see so many familiar faces. For those that I have not met, I am Jason Goldberg, and I cover the U.S. large-cap bank stocks here at Barclays. On behalf of my financial services equity research colleagues from around the world, welcome to Barclay's 24th Annual Global Financial Services Conference. With approximately 220 participating companies, we believe this is the largest sell-side financial services conference ever. I cannot think of a better way to kick off the conference than with the home team as Barclays combines UK retail and corporate investment banking franchises with a top-tier global investment bank. In addition, Bankant, Barclay's group chief executive officer for the past five years, and Anna, its group finance director for almost four and a half years, are big supporters of our research franchise as well as this conference. So Vankat, Anna, thank you for joining both of us this morning. Maybe let's begin. It's now been two and a half years since you first set your strategy and vision for Barclays. Clearly, you've made progress and are on track for greater than 14% ROTE for 2028, and the market believes that. but returns are still below many of the banks that I cover. Are you still confident in delivering the strategy you set out, and given the gap to peers, is your ambition high enough? Well, first of all, Jason, thank you very much for having us. Thank you for taking the risk of putting the home team on first. Congratulations to you and your colleagues for 24 years of this conference. You are running the premier financial services conference, if I may say so myself. And thanks to all of you for attending. We really appreciate your partnership with Barclays. You know, there are hundreds of companies presenting and many, many hundreds of investors here. And we appreciate your time and engaging with us and with all the companies that are here over the next two days. And so we're really grateful and we appreciate it a lot. So thank you. And thank you also for starting without a softball question. so the answer is we've laid out our plans we're very happy with the progress we've made in the last two and a half years in our mid-year results in July what we said is for the first three year plan which began in 24 going to 27 we've substantially met or are well on the path to meeting all the goals we've set and then we've led out more ambitious goals going out for the next two years which we're really confident in meeting, including 2026. But let me look beyond that. I mean, first, a couple of things. We've laid out goals as financial planning targets to 2028. Obviously, the horizon stretches beyond 2028, and that longer-term horizon is very much in our minds. And it is driven very deeply by ambition and growth. We're looking to create an all-weather ROTE beyond 2028 which means something that produces high returns over an economic cycle. How are we going to do that? And there are two fundamental ambitions to that. One is to build a constellation of segment-leading businesses. This constellation of Segment-Leading Businesses comes at the core of Investment Bank, which is a leading global investment bank. There's no greater sign of that than all of you here in this room and this conference which you run. The second is our UK businesses in retail, in wealth, in corporate banking, which cover the entire country, cover the smallest clients to the largest clients into the investment bank, and provide a connective tissue into the UK economy. And then the third, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, is our disruptive consumer bank here in the United States. So our ambition is first based on this constellation of segment-leading businesses, and second is based on a deep ambition and plans which are underway progress to reduce the structural cost footprint of the group. And we're looking to do it in three ways, the cost of production, unit cost of production, the unit cost of service, and the unit cost of innovation. So how cheaply can we produce a loan, onboard an account, service a mortgage, do a mortgage? How cheaply we can service a customer? And then how quickly can we build new products? We'll come later and talk about one recent example in Samsung and the US Consumer Bank. But these things are at the core of our ambition. constellation of segment leading businesses and reducing this unit structural cost footprint of the group and that's what's going to lead to you know all weather roti beyond 2028. and jason if i can just add i mean venkat is outlining here quite a significant amount of change but what the plan does is it balances that change with increasingly higher returns increasing distributions, I mean, we've gone from 9% in 2023 to being well on the way to deliver more than 12% this year and well on way to delivering more than 14% in 28. Our 12-month run rate to the half year was 12.2%. So we've got some real momentum in the business. We're not compromising on distributions as we make these investments. So it's not one or the other, it's both. It's a balance. So if you look at our distributions to the half year, and just recalling that we said we would distribute at least 10 billion over the first three years, we're at 9 billion by the half-year, with 1.2 billion of dividends still to go, and two quarters of buyback still to come. So there's a lot going on here. And then the last thing i just want you to i think understand and for everyone here to understand is that don't don't take um precision and execution and that focus that we have for lack of ambition we take target setting extremely seriously and we are never going to put out targets that are not fully grounded in the momentum that we see in the business and you can see that now Our lending is running at 5% CAGR. You know, our IB is generating good returns, stepping up every single quarter. And the assumptions that we are baking into the plan are very realistic. You know we're, I've talked about that 5% Cager, I've talk about the IB. Remember we were planning on a flat wallet. We said that we'll deliver 2 billion of cost savings across three years. In the first two and a half years of the plan, we've delivered more than $2 billion. And then finally, remember that structural hedge, we're assuming it's a 3.5% reinvestment rate. And that's half of our income growth between now and 28. So this is really underpinned by some very, very clear executable actions that allow us to invest in the businesses. I guess maybe to follow up something we were talking about on the walk up, but clearly AI is a big theme in the market. maybe just give us some color on the journey that Barclays is on, you know, as an organization and the opportunities that you see as you deploy the new technology. Yeah. Well, AI is, you know, a very critical part of the second ambition, which I said, which was reducing the unit costs of production service and innovation. Now, having said that, it's not just AI alone. The way I like to think about it is AI is the icing on the cake, it's not the cake. The cake comes from three other things, or four other things. One is, of course, to have a workforce that has the tools available and that can adopt them. The second is building the infrastructure that allows you to take advantage of AI, which is simpler, cleaner processes, better data, high-quality compute platforms, and to make that consistent across the bank. The third is because deploying AI at scale is not easy. You've got to learn how to do it and you've got to focus on the highest value use cases for the bank or for any company, the things that give you the most value, the most bang for buck. So picking those and doggedly sticking to them and getting the value out of them. And then the fourth is as corporate leaders, we must all recognize that once this really takes route, it is going to change the size and the shape of our workforce. And we should make it easy for that to happen for ourselves and for our employees through reskilling programs and other things. So AI comprises in my mind all four of them. I think it is a deep part of reducing our unit cost of production service innovation. And I think, you know, we're already seeing very promising signs in customer service, in financial controls, in ways in which we manage workflows within the investment bank. But it's at the start of that journey, and we're spending a lot of time on the infrastructure as well as on the AI. And we are seeing it actually in reducing the cost of innovation in the US consumer bank, and I'm sure we'll come to that. So I think this is tremendous promise, and it forces you to run a cleaner, tighter ship in terms of technology. And I think from a financial perspective, you know, if you just put a CFO lens on this for a minute, AI, we should expect, or this reduced cost to serve is better for the client. It makes our earnings much, much more resilient, because it will reduce that cost to service. And then finally, it gives us this optionality to be able to invest while continuing to balance the returns and the distributions to our shareholders. So it's super important, but it does come after this optimization of the organizational structure and around process. But we are seeing benefits even now. I mean, we're seeing about 6,000 hours savings in our contact centers. We are seeing, you know, a 20% reduction in our inbound fraud calls. So it's really starting to make meaningful differences, and we should expect it to make more. But also, we have to have a lens on the cost of implementing this technology. So as Venkat said, learning is really important here. You know, so as we are deploying this, we haveと look at the net cost and the net benefit. You can call it tokenomics. You can talk about a number of things. But that is really super important, and we need to be careful that we are deploying a Gen Tech where it's appropriate and machine learning where it is appropriate to really manage that net cost. In kind of answers to both of the last questions, you both mentioned efficiencies and cost saves. I guess with that theme, with second quarter results, you announced 450 pounds or $600 million of additional costs in the second half of the year. I mean, what drove this cost inflation, and where does this mean for kind of cost shape beyond 2026? Let me start, and then Anna can add. So I think, first of all, what's very important about that cost announcement is that it is a recognition of the efficiencies that we are beginning to achieve in both people and in cost to implement. And so, therefore, this cost actions which we have taken are things that are going to have a very quick payback, and they are of a moment. They allow us, based on the income which we Have generated so far this year, to accelerate the realization of these benefits. And we are extremely confident, even after all of this, that we'll hit the returns targets which we've laid out. right so we've got better income we're able to recognize and realize the benefits and we're doing so with a quick payback and we are maintaining all our targets yeah so when we talked to the half year we actually talked about two separate things so let me just remind you of both the first was a smaller number so between 100 and 150 million pounds and we re taking the opportunity to rebalance the way we recompense our most material earners in the firm, so the material risk takers, as they're called, and essentially reduce the fixed payments and increase the variable proportion, bringing us much more into alignment with our US peers and the pay structures here. That's really, really important because it gives us greater flexibility, greater operational leverage from 27 and beyond. It does accelerate some costs into 2026, but they are one time. The second thing that Venkat talked about, we talked about taking additional 300 million of cost actions in the second half. Now, just to ground you, we normally take between 200 and 300 million in any year. it's a bit like sort of mowing the lawn or doing the gardening we just have to do that to keep the organization efficient we've taken 100 in the first half so with this extra 300 that means we're pushing through 500 million pounds worth of change in the second half of the year expect that to be broadly split between q3 and q4 and actually in the third quarter i'm expecting about half of the cost to accrue into Barker's UK. And what's this about? Well, it's really organizational simplification. It's largely about personnel. It's lastly, therefore, going to give us a pretty quick payback. And really, this is about us delivering a simpler operational model. This is about us getting to a point where the organization can move faster, react faster, Of course, financial efficiency will be part of it, but it's not the only thing. And beyond 26, and I just want to remind you that when we report costs or when we report RATE or CIR, it's all in. So we said we would deliver a high 50s cost income ratio this year. That's still what we're going to deliver, despite taking the 150 in respect of, the changes to comp, despite taking an extra 300. And remember about the 100 that we took in motor finance in Q2. So we've got half a billion pounds of additional costs in the current year, which we do not expect to be repeated. We do not respect 600 to be the new norm in SEAs. And I just reiterate that we expect to being the low 50s CIR for 28. And I expect 27 to be a meaningful step towards that, and we continue to expect positive operating jaws in every single year of the plan. Sounds good. I guess maybe moving to the business, one I pay a lot of attention to, the U.S. consumer business. You know, there was a number of moving parts last quarter, American Airlines moving out, new relationships capabilities coming in, including BestEgg, you mentioned Samsung. Maybe just walk through how this business is evolving, and just, More fundamentally, does Barclays have sufficient scale to compete? Good question, Jason. Let me begin. Last year when I was here, I said about our private banking and wealth business, watch this space. I'm sure you're going to ask me a question. We can come back to that space. I'll say about the U.S. Consumer Bank, now watch this place as well. First of all, this is, I say, a constellation of segment-leading businesses. The U.S. Consumer Bank is one star in that constellation. What is this star about? This is a disruptive digital bank in the United States. We've got $30 billion-odd of assets. We've just bought BestTag, which is a direct-to-consumer, again, you know, app-based, Internet-based lending platform. Direct-to-consumer lending platform is about the fourth or fifth biggest in the country, around $10 billion of origination. We've got a deposit capability. And we don't have a single bank branch in the company. And we've got over 20 million customers. And we work with some of the biggest companies in the industry. So this digital consumer bank is our disruptive bank. Now, the interesting thing to me coming from a large bank is that if I were saying all this and I were a fintech, people wouldn't ask me about scale because they would assume two things. They'd assume, A, of course I had the ambition, we had the Ambition to generate that scale, and, B, that we would have the objective to actually get those economics to work. That's true for us here. We have the Ambission, and we have the Objective. In that context, and, you know, we'll talk about financials in a second the first you know preview trailer in this watch the space is our onboarding of Samsung so we did this using very modern advanced agentic AI programming techniques in about half the time we would have done otherwise and working with one of the most strict and demanding counterparties you can find in the technology world and think of this as the beginnings of developing a wallet and a card capability that is an Android version of what is the other one, which many of you have in your pockets. And we're very hopeful about this, but it's hopeful not just about the commercial process, but it is hopeful about the way in which we are doing it, which is this digital disruption. That's what the watch this space is about. I think also you know we forget where this business has come from so in 2023 when we went to our new segmentation this business had a four percent RATE over the last 12 months it's just short of 15 percent so it's made tremendous progress you know the NIM is up by 250 basis points since the beginning of the strategy that's now because you know our retail cards are now 24 percent of the business we've grown our deposits our retail deposits really really meaningfully in this business that's a much cheaper source of funds for us 50 to 60 basis points lower than we would see from a wholesale or a broker deposit and we are targeting our low 40s cost income ratio for this business it is in many ways our most digital business and it is our most efficient business. Those two things are very, very strongly linked. So we've made huge progress here. I think don't underestimate how much ability to connect between USCB, Barclays UK, and learn between the two. That is really, really important to us. Running a digital disruptor in not your home market is an extremely interesting thing for us to do. But as we look to this year, we're still confident that we're going to deliver around 12%. We talked about interest rate pressures on the top line. They are intensifying, but through these many levers that we have, we continue to push. Maybe let's move to the UK from both a macro and business performance perspective. I know Barclays has a target to grow lending greater than 5% CAGR from 25 to 28. You exited 25 at 5%, and have been constantly growing at this level so far this year. Maybe just tell us how you've been doing it, what, to the extent, the UK macro environment's helping or hindering your growth, and how you think about the broader policy backdrop, including the potential proposals around bank taxation. You're provoking me, aren't you? It was in the FT. So first of all, about the UK, it's never as bad as you read it in the newspapers. So real growth is about 1.2%, nominal growth is around 4%. It is higher than any other country in the Eurozone. Now, it is not the United States, but it is pretty good. There is good formation of capital inside smaller companies. They are borrowing, they are investing. and we are playing a big part of that and as you mentioned, our lending growth is increasing. I think it's very important for us and we said this in our strategy three years ago to continue to compete very strongly in the UK, everywhere and at the heart of that is our retail bank and the deposit gathering capability within that and what we call our premier client base which is somewhat affluent customers with whom we have not just retail deposits and retail services but wealth management and so on and the linkage with business banking and corporate banking. That's the core of our retail franchise. Now, we continue to meet the commitments which we laid out in terms of growth. We said $30 billion in RWA's increase over this three-year period We're well on target to meet that, and our returns remain strong, and we're actually increasing not just the digital capabilities, but the human capabilities in that by growing our branch network and services. So I'm very confident in the UK, and I would also say as somebody leading a global bank, you know, your global bank is as strong as your home market, as you are in your home market. It's very hard to be a very successful global bank without having a deep hold in your home market. And that's an important thing for us in the U.K. As for bank taxes, look, I've spoken enough about this. The U.S. is, among the major countries, the most highly taxed jurisdiction at 46% taxes versus 30s to 40s in the Eurozone and 28 here in the US. as our profitability increases we pay more taxes right, that's just how the math works and I think this constant talk not just over banks but other businesses in the UK trying to hang this Damocles' sword over business profitability is not conducive to the economic growth that the country needs and wants so that's what I'll say The thing I would add Jason is that you know with all parts of our plan we try to put as much of it in our hands as possible so you know this our lending growth is largely self-help we are not reliant on the market to grow and again just reminding you where we were and where we are now so in the last two and a half years we've gone from being a single brand to having a multi-brand strategy in Barclays UK so you can see that coming through now in our mortgage business where we've i think our application share and completion share is is higher than our stock share for about the last nine quarters because we're putting kensington to work and the same is true for tesco now in terms of the cards business that allows us to approach the market in a much more sophisticated way in terms of the product architecture and the pricing architecture that we approach the market with and some technology in there as well with our broker platform the same is true in corporate from the smallest business banking clients all the way through to the very very largest you know we've changed the way that we lend we've got more than 1400 new clients they are bringing both deposits and lending to us our loan to deposit ratio has gone from 31% in corporate to 35 our peers are well over 50 and in many instances closer to 70 we have so much way to go in terms of lending to the clients we already have within the firm that actually you know it gives us great confidence in the business and particularly in corporate this is a business which had been under-invested in for many, many years. So we're now taking all of our corporate clients on a journey to migrate them onto contemporary technology called iPortal. That will replace five legacy platforms. So you're going to see them shut down from 2027 onwards. But more importantly, it can allow us to integrate new products really, really quickly. And I was speaking to the team the other day, Carl's just here. He and I were talking about our trade capabilities, which have grown meaningfully. Our income from trade across the corporate bank and the international corporate bank has grown meaningfully in the last 12 months. Why? Because we've implemented a new platform that allows our colleagues to go out and deliver that to clients. And when they can do that, then the revenue follows. So we're confident, Jason, because of the actions that we're taking. And just the last thing on tax, just so that everybody's got the numbers in their head. So there is so much newsprint at the moment about the surcharge in the UK. That 3% surcharge delivers a £1 billion sterling tax take to the exchequer. £1 million. So it is not a large-scale change for the government. Just so you have the numbers for us, any 1% change in that is about £35 million. So I think the important thing here is the focus on growth. Actually, the numbers involved for us are relatively small as an earnings matter. Yeah, I can just add the numbers are small. It's the principle. Yeah. And then the second thing is the reduced cost of innovation you're already seeing in our US consumer bank, the reduced cost to produce and to serve we expect to see in our UK retail business first. I guess while you're diversifying that interest income towards lending, deposits remain a key driver of an AI growth and I suspect will be a theme of the conference. In an increasing competitive UK deposit market, how are you winning and retaining deposits while protecting profitability? Let me start. I think three things. This is a bank analyst conference so I shouldn't have, you know, you know more than I do, but deposits are the core of banking. And banks make money in three simple ways. We've got the deposits, and that and, you know, God willing, an upward sloping yield curve gives you some return. Then you make money from lending and the spreads from lending. And the third is you make many from fees, right? At any point in time, one of these things is more profitable than it might be in other parts of time. But the entire franchise depends on your having both the ability to gather deposits and maintain deposits, the abilityto lend, and the abilitytodo fees. So you've got to run all three at the same time, even though momentarily one may make more money than the other because the yield curve is flat or downward-floping or whatever. So we take our deposit growth very seriously. We continue to expand across the U.K. We just bought a small company called GoHenry, which is about giving kids spending with the hope of getting them onto your deposit base, you know, catching them young and keeping them forever. And so we take that, whether it's in the retail part, in the business bank, or the corporate part. It's a very, very important part of the franchise. And, you know... I have a through-the-cycle view of it, not just momentary profitability. Yeah, thanks, Venkat. I think the other thing, Jason, is as people look at our deposit base, they overly focus on BUK. Of course it's really important, but you've got to look at the breadth of deposits across the franchise for Barker's. I mean, our U.S. consumer bank deposits are up by more than 50% since 2023. Our international corporate bank deposits are up bei nearly 40% since 2023. And for a mature bank like Barclays with its global reach to have grown its deposit franchise by 10% since 2023 should show you the quality and the depth of our deposit franchise, not just in BUK, but all the way across the businesses. And, you know, sometimes, particularly when we talk about the structural hedge, people talk about it as a piece of financial engineering that is somehow disconnected to the rest of the bank. We've got a great structural hedge that will drive 50% of our income growth between now and 2028 because of the quality of the deposit franchise. So it's a complete underpin. They are not disconnected. So those deposits are crucially important to the relationship and to the financial progress we're making. And, you know, Anna makes a good point. What we do outside just the retail side is really important. Now, corporate bank has been an area of both great focus, growth, and success. And, in fact, just very recently, as a result of another investment banking transaction, we had the highest single deposit we've had in our international corporate bank, in the high billions from one client, and that's very gratifying to see. So we have eight minutes left, and I have four questions I really want to get through. So let's rapid fire. February, we talked about the strategy for 2028 and beyond and ambition to grow fee income. Just remind us what part of the banks you're referring to in the progress so far. Go for it, Anna. So we talked to you about Barclays UK and private banking and wealth management. I mean, this is really important. Again, if you don't spend much time in the UK, integrating financial advice into a bank is not something that's been done since 2014, since the regulation change. So all of the changes that we're making here about relaunching the retail amp, really keenly replumbing across to private banking and wealth, and launching our wealth proposition in the second quarter, where actually it's digitally provisioned, but your first meeting is with an advisor, fee-free, a real human thereafter, you know, really good digital proposition. That is unique in the UK, and we're really excited about what that is. Watch that space. Watch that place, definitely. So Premier, really, really important. You know, reducing custody fees to zero. This is going to be a price-leading disruptor. This is another disruptor that we're talking about here. So secondly, we talked about the U.S. cards business. Best Egg is a big fee proposition for us in that market. You know, capital efficient growth. And then finally, for corporates, we talked about trade. You know everything that we're doing about our transaction bank. It's one of our biggest engines for growth within the investment bank. And don't forget IB fees. On IB fees, a very important business to me. obviously, the results have been strong. Can we just talk to how investors should think about the cyclical versus structural drivers of the recent performance and just the sustainability of returns? Yeah. So, look, I'm very pleased with our performance in the investment banking area, both in markets and in banking. Obviously, the underlying fundamentals have been strong on both sides. Wallet growth has been good. We were in nine of the top 10 IPOs in the first half of the year. We've got a strong book coming in the second half of the year. and the banking team is very busy. And on the market side, you know, volatility continued a pace through the first half of the year. It took a small breath in August, or maybe the traders took a small breath. It took small breath in August. And I think, you know... We're back in Fed week. We're looking at various things in the bond market. I'm expecting markets to continue to show volatility through the fall. And so I think those are cyclically very important. Structurally, we continue to have stable income streams dominate the returns in our banking franchise. And to the point, financing revenues are now about 40% of total revenues in the investment bank. And so that structural improvement is really, really important. Anything to add? Nope. Oh, wow. Watch that. I know something we've discussed, but what about Barclays Investment Bank competitive position today relative to U.S. peers? Maybe talk to that. Is there a regulatory divergence within the U.K. and the U.'S. an issue? Yeah. I mean, look, let me begin at the beginning, which is that we've been dealing with this for decades. And we still, with all of that, manage to have an investment bank that is extremely competitive and that's profitable. Now, is there a real difference in capital rules between the U.S. and the UK and Europe? There absolutely is. And I was part of a letter that a bunch of European and U.K. and Swiss banks signed last week. And we think it's really, really important to have harmonization in capital roots for competitiveness sake. So I think there's more to be done. But, you know, we know the rules we have and we'll run a business that's profitable in spite of them. I wish for a tailwind, but if we don't get it, we'll still do well. I think the other thing, Jason, you know, clients come to the investment bank in Barclays because of the capabilities that we bring. That is the most important thing, and we continue to structurally change the business, drive its returns higher, and we'll deal with any capital divergence. Makes sense. And I guess maybe to wrap up, you now, as we look towards 2028 and beyond, What do you think investors underestimate about Barclays? What would you like investors to understand about the earnings power, strategic positioning, and durability of the franchise? Let me start quickly. First of all, that earnings power. I learned very early in finance that the most important rule is compounding. And when you look at the compounding effect, our earnings per share growth has been in double digits. our tangible net asset value, TNAF per share growth, including dividends, is also in double digits, I think 13%. So what you're seeing is a compounding in the underlying value of the stock and also in the earnings power of the store. Where does that come from and where will that continue to come from? The two things I mentioned. A constellation of segment-leading businesses, including two disruptors, and a relentless drive to reduce the cost of production, the cost-of-service, unit cost of product, unit cost-off-service and the unit cost off-innovation, right? We expect all of those things to fall through to the bottom line. Those things are what I think will power the stock and good risk management. Can't forget that. Anything else? I would say, you know, at the moment, I think the ambition that we have for the business beyond 2028 is underestimated. Great. That's perfect. On that note, please join me in thanking Bank Canada for their time this morning.