Barclays today reported that profits for the three months to September had more than tripled £1.56 billion after a strong performance from its investment banking business and announced that it had restored its dividend for the first time since the global financial crisis broke.

Today’s figures for the third quarter are in-line with forecasts and above the £482 million profit it reported a year ago at the height of the financial crisis. However, profits for the period are slightly below the £1.61 billion recorded between April and June, though Barclays attributed the fall to a traditional seasonal decline in income.

John Varley, the chief executive of Britain's second largest bank, said: "We have maintained income momentum in the third quarter, particularly in Barclays Capital and across the international activities of Global Retail and Commercial Banking, enabling us to achieve consistent profitability across the first three quarters of 2009.

“This performance shows the resilience and diversification of our portfolio of businesses."

Barclays shares fell 10.7p or just over 3 per cent in early trade to 332.5p. Traders said that although the investment bank division, Barclays Capital, had performed well in the quarter, the profits were still down compared to the bumper second quarter and this had caused some disappointment. Finance director Chris Lucas also said that impairments across the group would likely be "a bit higher" in the fourth quarter than in the third.

Commenting on bonuses, Mr Lucas said that the size of payouts to staff for this year's performance would be decided in January.

There have been suggestions that Barclays might move to restrict bonuses this year as a political gesture since Royal Bank Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group have been forced to defer all cash bonuses this year for staff earning more than £39,000 a year.

Mr Lucas said that the bank was working to move its bonus structure in line with G20 requirements which restrict cash bonuses for senior staff but do not limit rewards for most workers.

Barclays said that over the first nine months of this year, pre-tax profits fell by 19 per cent to £4.5 billion.

However, stripping out a number of charges that the bank incurred in the nine months to September, Barclays' profits more than doubled from £2 billion in the same period last year to £4.4 billion.

The bank said that income over the period had risen 26 per cent against last year while the rate of losses through bad loans was reducing.

The bank is predicting that writedowns for the full year would be at the bottom end of its predicted range of £9 billion to £9.6 billion. It is paying an interim dividend of 1p a share.

Unlike Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds, Barclays has refused bailout funding from the Government and has emerged from the financial crisis as one of the country's strongest lenders, buying the US assets of Lehman Brothers, the collapsed American bank.

Barclays also missed out on buying ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, to a consortium led by RBS, then under the leadership of Sir Fred Goodwin.

Many blame the acquisition of ABN for RBS's parlous state — last week it received an additional £40 billion in taxpayers' money, on top of the £20 billion it has already been given to save it from collapse under a mountain of toxic debt.

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