Barclays 2008 Annual Report Download - page 129

1
Business review
Barclays PLC Annual Report 2008 127
1
Business review
Risk management
Capital risk management
Organisation and structure
Barclays operates a centralised capital management model, considering
both regulatory and economic capital.
The Group’s capital management objectives are to:
– Maintain sufficient capital resources to meet the minimum regulatory
capital requirements set by the FSA and the US Federal Reserve Bank’s
requirements that a financial holding company be well capitalised.
– Maintain sufficient capital resources to support the Group’s risk
appetite and economic capital requirements.
– Support the Group’s credit rating.
– Ensure locally regulated subsidiaries can meet their minimum capital
requirements.
– Allocate capital to businesses to support the Group’s strategic
objectives, including optimising returns on economic and regulatory
capital.
Treasury Committee manages compliance with the Group’s capital
management objectives. The Committee reviews actual and forecast
capital demand and resources on a monthly basis. The processes in place
for delivering the Group’s capital management objectives are:
– Establishment of internal targets for capital demand and ratios
– Managing capital ratio sensitivity to foreign exchange rate movements
– Ensuring local entity regulatory capital adequacy
– Allocating capital to the Group’s strategic medium-term plan
– Economic capital management
In addition to the processes above, the Risk Oversight Committee and the
Board Risk Committee annually review and set risk appetite (see page 78)
and analyse the impacts of stress scenarios (see page 79) in order to
understand and manage the Group’s projected capital adequacy.