British bank Barclays said it is on track to meet analysts' expectations for earnings growth of four percent this year, saying diversification had shielded it from recent turbulence in capital markets.

Britain's third biggest bank said it should deliver a 2007 pretax profit of 7.1 billion pounds ($14.7 billion), up from underlying profit of 6.8 billion in 2006. Its performance in the first nine months of this year was underpinned by good underlying growth in global retail and commercial banking, with UK retail banking "delivering good growth in profit" after settling refunds for bank charges and with bad debts improving, the bank said.

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