Financial Crisis

A man walks out of a branch of Barclays Bank in central London, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 . Banking group Barclays PLC reported Tuesday a 29 percent fall in net profit for the first nine months of the year as rising provisions for bad debts outweighed a strong performance in its investment banking arm.Barclays, one of the few British banks not to resort to a multibillion government bailout, said that net profit for the nine months ended Sept. 30 was 2.73 billion pounds ($4.55 billion, down from 3.83 billion pounds a year ago.Impairment charges rose rose 65 percent over the same period to 6.21 billion pounds, but the bank said that it expects charges for the full year to be at the lower end of its previously forecast range of 9-9.6 billion pounds.