Embattled British bank Barclays gets new CEO

NEW YORK -- Barclays has named a new chief executive as the embattled British bank weathers fallout from the global interest-rate-fixing scandal.

Antony Jenkins, a Barclays veteran of nearly 30 years who headed its retail and business banking division, was named CEO and a director, the bank announced Thursday.

Jenkins assumes Barclays’ helm during a bit of a leadership vacuum. In July, Robert Diamond resigned his post as CEO amid pressure from British Prime Minister David Cameron and regulators. The bank’s chief operating officer and board chairman also bid farewell.

Those departures came swiftly after Barclays agreed to pay $450 million to settle criminal and regulatory investigations by U.S. and British authorities into the manipulation of key interest rates, including the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor.

Libor determines interest rates on trillions of dollars worth of financial products around the globe, including mortgages and derivatives.

Jenkins will also have to deal with a separate criminal probe that Barclays disclosed on Wednesday. The bank confirmed that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office has begun investigating “payments under certain commercial agreements” between Barclays and Qatar Holding.

In a statement, Jenkins acknowledged Barclays has made “serious mistakes in recent years.”

“We have an obligation to all of those stakeholders -- customers, clients, shareholders, colleagues and broader society -- and a unique opportunity to restore Barclays reputation by making it the ‘go to’ bank in all of our chosen markets,” Jenkins said. “That journey will take time, we have much to do, and I look forward to getting started immediately.”

ALSO:

Pending home sales rise in July

SEC weighs ending ban on hedge fund advertising

“Occupy” protesters plan to disrupt Wall Street in September