Barclays offers to buy back £2.5bn of debt after King's warning

Barclays has offered to buy back £2.5bn worth of debt to boost its capital levels.

Coming just days after the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, said banks need to prepare for the potential fallout from the eurozone crisis, Barclays has made an offer to debt holders to buy back a variety of securities.

Barclays has offered to buy back debt including Callable Perpetual Core Tier One Notes, as well as a variety of reserve capital notes.

The bank said it was carrying out the offer to boost capital levels.

"Offers will enable the issuer to enhance further the quality of its capital structure through the reduction of non-Basel III compliant tier one capital and subsequent generation of additional core tier one capital."

The offer is open now and will close in early January.

It comes just a week after King told banks they must consider raising more capital in the next few months to cope with the "exceptionally threatening" environment.

The governor said banks should also consider raising capital by issuing new shares, while he urged them to cut dividends and bonuses to ensure they can keep lending to businesses and consumers.

Shares in the bank were down marginally by mid-morning, off 1.1% or 2.15p, at 189.5p.