Barclays: Releasing £39m bonus details on Budget day was 'a mistake'

Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of retail and business at Barclays, has admitted that 2012 was a "very difficult year" for the bank, and said the decision to release details of staff's £38.5m bonus details on Budget day was a "mistake" but claimed it was not an attempt to bury the news.

Barclays - which was this week named and shamed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as attracting the most complaints of any financial institution - was last year mired in the LIBOR rigging saga, which saw its chief executive Bob Diamond grilled by MPs over the bank's role in the scandal. The bank was fined £290m by UK and US regulators over its rigging involvement - and has set aside £2bn to cover payment protection insurance mis-selling compensation. Speaking at an event in London yesterday, Vaswani said 2012 was a "very difficult year, especially for Barclays", and said it was...