Barclays planning to jettison 7,000 'less profitable' clients as capital rules hit hard

London

BARCLAYS Plc is preparing to tell 7,000 clients to do more trading with the firm or find another bank, the latest move in an industrywide trend of winnowing down customer lists to the ones that produce significant profits.

The British bank launched a new computer system, called Flight Deck, this month that ranks every customer of its trading unit by the return they generate on the firm's capital, allowing Barclays to prioritize its most lucrative relationships and jettison those that have become a drag.