On a sunny afternoon in Portugal in June 2012, Antony Jenkins was preparing himself for bad news. From Barclays’ offices in Lisbon, where he had flown for a meeting, the then retail banking boss was waiting for regulators to announce that Barclays would be fined £290m for manipulating the Libor interest rate, in what was becoming one of the largest banking scandals of the decade.
Turning to one of the compliance officers, Jenkins asked for the harsh truth: how bad would the Libor scandal be for Barclays? “I remember looking out of the office and having this conversation, and I could feel my heart sinking,” he tells the Observer.
