Barclays has bounced back as a major force in international retail banking. Last year, it completed its £2.6bn acquisition of Absa in South Africa, bought the French wealth management businesses of Dutch bank ING and was a year ahead of schedule in the integration of Banco Zaragozano, the Spanish bank it acquired in 2003.
Barclays has a long history of providing personal banking services around the world, but by the late 1990s that part of its business had contracted.
