Barclays joins peers in targeting German firms for growth

Bloomberg

Barclays Plc aims for a bigger slice of the business with German companies after adding employees and hiring a new country head.
The London-based lender, which gets the majority of its revenue in Germany from retail clients, wants to double its market share in investment and corporate banking to around 6%, Ingrid Hengster, who took over as country head this year, said in an interview.
“We have given ourselves five years to get there,“ she said at the lender’s offices in Frankfurt.
“Germany is home to many global industrial giants. That is one of the reasons why Germany is so interesting for us.”
Barclays is joining Wall Street peers such as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc in
targeting Europe’s largest economy for expansion, seeking to tap demand from the country’s export-focused corporations.
Germany has only two large, publicly traded banks left as the industry struggles to rebound from the financial crisis.
Hengster joined from state-owned lender Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau where she served as a board member. She helped build KfW’s venture capital business and led aid programs for German companies during the pandemic.