On many cars, there is a warning embossed on the rear-view mirror: “Objects may be closer than they appear.” It’s not an altogether reassuring piece of advice, but at least it gives you a sense of where you are.

Barclays Capital emerged yesterday, finally, to give some much-needed guidance to the clients, customers and other passengers of the bank. And, in short, it said: “Exposures may be smaller than they appear.” Again, it was not an entirely uplifting message, but it provided a welcome sense of the bank’s position.

BarCap’s reputation has suffered in recent days because it has added mystery to opacity. Its share price has slipped even further, putting its bid for ABN-Amro €11.9 billion below that of the rival RBS-led consortium. In these circumstances, BarCap’s discretion has been entirely self-defeating.

Of course, investment banks are bound by client confidentiality and, by their nature, prone to secrecy. But when Edward Cahill, a middle-ranking banker who structured a handful of obscure investment vehicles, left Barclays last week, it offered no explanation of why. In the present climate, the awkward silence surrounding the departure of a banker who had been such an outspoken advocate of adventurous new financial instruments in the sub-prime space suggested that serious problems loomed.

Then BarCap’s name cropped up again and again as Sachsen, the German landesbank, struggled to come to terms with its overexposure to US sub-prime mortgage debt. BarCap had structured the Sachsen investment vehicle. It turned out that BarCap had served as prime broker to Synapse Investment Management, the hedge fund that had lumbered Sachsen with such damaging losses. And it turned out that Synapse itself was founded by a couple of former BarCap managing directors. This prompted gathering fears of BarCap exposures running into the hundreds of millions of pounds.

In fact, BarCap’s problems in the credit market may well be far less troubling than many of its competitors’.

The bank says that its money is as well-protected as it could be. It’s collateralised. And, by comparison with other lenders, it’s at the front of the queue. A senior BarCap official says that, even in the worst possible circumstances, it is hard to see how the SIV-lite troubles could leave the bank on the hook for anything more than £100 million. The losses will be “not billions, not hundreds of millions,” he said. On SIV-lites, it is more likely to be tens.

BarCap, unlike other investment banks, has a nationwide following. It caters not only to colleagues in Canary Wharf, but also to a customer base across the country. So, for all those who have their mortgages, lifetime savings and even monthly pay cheques held by Barclays, the very modest potential losses from SIV-lites will be welcome news.

BarCap has, historically, created a warm fuzzy feeling for shareholders. They may not be exactly sure how the investment banking arm of Barclays is making quite so much money in the credit markets, but as it has grown exponentially, increased its share of the group’s profits and kept an exemplary lid on bad debts, there has been no need to probe too closely. In these more anxious markets, people start to worry whether it’s too good to be true.

It certainly seems that it is not as bad as people may fear. But, as Barclays has found out over the past week, they just want to know where they are.

The bank needs to allow people a good look in the rear-view mirror, just to provide some reassurance about where it is going.

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