[Photo:  by Rex Features, in The Guardian]

Barclays is about to overhaul its back office operations under a restructuring that will help the bank comply with new post-crisis rules that call for British banks to ring-fence their retail operations from their riskier business. More than 10,000 people work in Barclays back offices operations in 17 countries around the world.

The ring-fencing rules seek to avoid a repeat of the 2008 crisis, when banks' bad bets threatened depositors' cash. While Barclays was not among those that needed a UK taxpayer-funded bailout, the new rules apply to all lenders in Britain that have retail and commercial or investment banking activities.

Under the restructuring, Barclays will operate a new stand-alone company – known internally as ‘ServCo - that will provide support services to both its 2 main operations when they are formally separated - retail and investment banking. Barclays aims to: (i) protect the continuity of its critical support functions if either of its main businesses were to run into trouble; (ii) keep down costs by operating a single back-office unit for the 2 businesses. The bank acknowledges that some jobs will be cut.

No details were given on the possible staff cuts or the cost of the restructuring.