Banking veteran John McFarlane. Photo: Aviva/PA Wire

Barclays has appointed banking and insurance veteran John McFarlane as its new chairman to oversee the British bank’s efforts to stamp out wrongdoing and improve performance.

McFarlane, a Scot, will step down as chairman of British insurer Aviva and take the Barclays hot seat in April.

Aviva said Adrian Montague would take over as its chairman, also in April. He has previously been chairman of UK life insurer Friends Provident and British Energy.

Barclays has been searching for a strong replacement for David Walker, who is 74 and been chairman since November 2012. With chief executive Antony Jenkins he has tried to improve culture after a series of scandals – including the mis-selling of loan insurance and the attempted manipulation of Libor interest rates – raised concern about lax standards.

My perception is he’s down to earth and a pretty tough operator with a lot of international experience. It looks like a good choice

McFarlane, 67, was chief executive of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) for 10 years until 2007 and has been Aviva’s chairman since July 2012, making some tough decisions to turn around an underperforming business.

He took over the full-time running of the insurer in May 2012 after an investor revolt saw off CEO Andrew Moss.

McFarlane delivered a damning assessment of Moss’s five years in charge and vowed “to regain the respect of share-holders by eliminating the discount in our share price”.

He appointed Mark Wilson as chief executive, who has overseen an improvement in the insurer’s performance.

Barclays is in the midst of its own turnaround, as CEO Jenkins tries to improve profitability by shrinking the bank to slash costs and axe underperforming units and reduce its reliance on investment banking.

McFarlane last year said there were not many people who could run a big British bank due to the increased regulatory demands on the role.

“There are probably less than a dozen individuals globally that have the right experience to do it. I do think that a chairman of a bank should ideally have relevant banking experience because of the complexity involved,” he said.

Barclays shares were up 1.4 per cent by 9:20am GMT, outperforming a flat European bank index. Aviva shares were down 0.8 per cent. Most of McFarlane’s career has been in banking; he joined ANZ from Standard Chartered, where he was an executive director from 1993 to 1997.

He worked for Citigroup and its predecessor firms for 18 years until 1993, including as head of its UK and Ireland business for three years.

He began his career in manufacturing with Ford in Britain, after studying at the University of Edinburgh and the Cranfield School of Management in Bedford.

McFarlane will also step down as chairman of transport firm FirstGroup. He was also a non-executive director at Royal Bank of Scotland after its bailout in October 2008 until 2012.

He will be paid 800,000 pounds a year as Barclays chairman, including 100,000 in its shares, and is not eligible for any bonus.

He is expected to work the equivalent of four days a week.