Barclays warns to miss profit goal

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The bank's return on equity of 5.8 percent last year, from 7.2 percent in 2010, was "unacceptable," he said.

"They need to get harder in restructuring these banks," Potter said, adding the bank is still not getting to grips with its high staff costs.

Barclays said it had cut bonuses at investment banking division Barclays Capital (BarCap) by 32 percent from the year before, and incentive awards across the group were down 26 percent.

BarCap's bonus pool was 1.5 billion pounds, or an average of 64,000 pounds across its 24,000 staff. Across the group the average bonus was 15,200 pounds.

Barclays is the first of the big British banks to report results and has come under pressure to rein in pay for bankers, and for Diamond, after a bad year for the industry and as jobs continue to be cut and the economy wobbles.

Diamond, who became chief executive a year ago after a decade building up BarCap, has for years been one of Europe's best paid bank executives and has faced calls to forgo his bonus.

He refused to comment on whether he would be awarded a bonus or what he planned to do.

Barclays, Britain's fourth-biggest bank by market value, reported a pretax profit of 5.9 billion pounds for 2011, down 3 percent on the year and below analysts' forecast of 6.1 billion, according to a company poll.

Barclays shares fell in early trading but bounced back and were up 3 percent at 240 pence, after hitting their highest level since July.