The ADI licence will enable Barclays to further its Australia growth initiatives with its local strategic partner.

Australia's Prudential Regulation Authority has authorised Barclays to operate as a foreign authorised deposit-taking institution in the country. Barclays Australia branch is due to go live as a foreign bank branch locally in April 2022.

The country-continent is an important part of Barclays’ growth plans in the region and establishing the branch in Sydney is a key milestone in growing the bank’s client base and enabling it to further serve its Australian corporate and institutional clients, the bank said in a statement.

“Australia presents tremendous growth opportunities and is an important financial services market in the region,” Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays, Asia-Pacific, said. “This foreign ADI licence reinforces our commitment to Australia and enables us to proactively serve our clients with our global corporate and investment bank platform, supporting their cross-border growth ambitions even further.”

Barclays has been involved in the Australian leveraged finance market, offering offshore capital markets issuance and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) solutions, as well as supporting key clients across their acquisition financing requirements, the bank said.

“The ADI licence granted to Barclays is an important step in demonstrating to clients our commitment to the Australian financial market,” Richard Satchwell, country chief and head of investment banking, Australia, said. “Barclays has built momentum steadily in our business over the past few years. We announced our strategic investment in Barrenjoey Capital Partners in September 2020, and are already seeing results of the investment with a strong pipeline of transactions one year on. Today’s news on the ADI licence is another landmark and will further accelerate our plans to deepen the dialogue with Australian and global clients looking for opportunities in Australia.”

The Barclays press release made no mention of wealth management activities in Australia. The bank has had a presence in Asia-Pacific for 50 years and re-established its Australia office in 2018 to provide global financing solutions to local clients. Operating as a corporate and investment bank in Asia-Pacific with market presence in Australia, China/Hong Kong SAR, India, Japan and Singapore, its regional investment banking and global markets businesses are led by Vanessa Koo and Matt Pecot respectively.