Never before in its history Barclays faced such an awkward position and now it has made a volte-face. In the meantime it did receive a furious reaction from staff about the decision to close the final-salary scheme to plug a £3.5bn gap and now, it is considering enhancing its pension fund. In this regard, Chairman of the company, Marcus Agius, told a shareholder meeting that possible changes might be made seeing that the bank entered the final week of a two-month consultation over the controversial plans for the fund. Shareholders walked past noisy protesters from the union Unite, which will soon ballot members on industrial action.

Agius, while answering to a question from a shareholder, stated that the bank was looking at "what enhancements we can make" to the offer being made to members of the final-salary scheme. Another shareholder suggested putting directors\' bonuses into the fund instead.

Barclays announced at the start of June that it wanted to shut the scheme and shift more than 18,000 workers into a cheaper retirement plan.

Barclays PLC is a major global financial services firm operating in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Latin America, Australia, Asia and Africa. It is a holding company that is listed on the London, New York stock exchanges, and was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange until 2008. It is also a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It operates through its subsidiary Barclays Bank plc.

The company is ranked as the 25th largest company in the world according to Forbes Global 2000 (2008 list) and the fourth largest financial services provider in the world according to Tier 1 capital ($32.5 billion). It is the second largest bank in the United Kingdom based on asset size, although its share price, having fallen by 40% in the past year as of 10 May 2009, is considerably lower as a result of a fall in investor confidence.