The boss of Barclays has set out plans to use artificial intelligence to help drive the next leg of his turnaround of the bank as he targets about £2 billion of cost cuts over three years.

C.S. Venkatakrishnan, the lender’s chief executive who is known as Venkat, on Tuesday said the bank aimed to hand back more than £15 billion of surplus capital to shareholders by the end of 2028 as he pushes into the next phase of his shake-up of the group.

The capital returns objective was one of several new three-year targets set by Barclays, which also included a goal of delivering about £2 billion of gross efficiency savings over the period.

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Venkat said: “We will invest further to improve customers’ experience and deepen relationships, while harnessing new technology, including AI, to improve efficiency and build segment-leading businesses and drive further growth.”

It comes two years after Venkat set out his original three-year plan to revamp Barclays, which has involved rebalancing the group away from its big investment banking division, where returns can be volatile.

His revamp encompasses a push to grow its retail, corporate and private banking operations in Britain but it has now been twice thwarted in its attempt to expand its operations here through takeovers.

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Last summer it lost out to Santander UK in the race to buy TSB, which went for £2.65 billion, and this week it was beaten by NatWest in the auction for Evelyn Partners, a wealth manager that clinched a £2.7 billion price tag.

Even so, this initial turnaround, which Barclays is now most of the way through, has paid off for investors, with Barclays shares having jumped by about 240 per cent in two years.

The new targets from Barclays were published alongside its annual results for last year, which showed its pre-tax profits climbed by 13 per cent to £9.1 billion, surpassing the £9 billion that had been forecast by City analysts.

It also said it would hand back £800 million through a 5.6p a share full-year dividend and would return as much as £1 billion through a share buyback.