Everything seems to be sailing along fine at Barclays these days. But it still cannot shake off the suspicions in the City that there are problems below the waterline.

The Unite union yesterday played on these fears, accusing Barclays of being secretive about the reasons for the closure of its final salary pension scheme. Unite suggested it may have been told to shut the scheme by the regulators, as part of the stress tests of the bank earlier this year. Barclays is refusing to disclose the stress tests, so Unite has lobbed a freedom of information request to the Financial Services Authority.

The union should not hold its breath; the FSA is not going to divulge sensitive information about any bank. But Barclays should think about why such claims still resonate and why its shares trade at such a discount to book value.

It still faces questions about what rivals see as aggressive valuations for the assets on its books compared with other banks. According to Barclays, for example, its commercial property loans have suffered almost no impairment, in stark contrast to the carnage elsewhere. Although its loans may just be better quality, sceptics think that if the recession turns out to be W rather than V shaped, Barclays could start to take in water.

As luck would have it, however, Barclays Capital analysts predicted yesterday that US and European economies would show “a clear bounce” in the second half. In which case it should be plain sailing for the bank.

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