A former Deloitte accountant who helped to probe the collapse of Barings bank is to play a key role in overhauling Barclays' business practices following its fine for manipulating the Libor interbank interest rate.
I have learned that Russell Collins, who recently retired as a partner at Deloitte, is to act as the deputy to Anthony Salz, who was last month appointed to head the inquiry.
Mr Collins, who spent time on secondment to the Bank of England and heads the City watchdog's practitioners' panel, is understood to have been recruited by Mr Salz in recent days.
People close to Barclays also revealed on Thursday night that the Salz review would be assisted by BCG, the consulting firm, after the big four accountancy practices were all ruled out by the Barclays board amid concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
Mr Salz will report the findings of his inquiry into Barclays' culture and business ethics ahead of the bank's annual meeting next spring.
The probe and its recommendations are likely to form a crucial part of Barclays' efforts to rebuild its reputation among employees, customers, investors and regulators.
It was fined almost £300m for attempting to rig the Libor rate both for the financial gain of traders and to imply a false impression of its health during the 2008 banking crisis.
The punishment led to the resignations of Marcus Agius, its chairman, Bob Diamond, chief executive, and Jerry del Missier, chief operating officer.
This month MPs on the Treasury Select Committee accused Mr Diamond of providing misleading evidence on the affair, an accusation he denied.
Barclays intends to make a submission to a separate inquiry into banking standards headed by Andrew Tyrie MP. The deadline is on Friday.
Barclays is not the only British bank to have suffered serious reputational blows in recent weeks. HSBC and Standard Chartered have faced the ire of US regulators over transactions relating to Mexican and Iranian customers respectively.
Barclays declined to comment on Thursday night.
