Bloomberg put it to the chief executive of Barclays that his bank had missed the year's marquee listings. His answer was that Barclays was on nine of the ten big initial public offerings in the first half, and that it was on the SpaceX deal in the UK.
The rest of the conversation was less combative and more useful, because the bank that calls itself the house that fixed income built has a view on why government bond yields are rising everywhere at once, and it is not the one that gets the headlines.
"There's a confluence of three forces, Dani, which make the bond markets particularly interesting."
He runs the bank hosting the conference, he has been in the room with the UK chancellor about the tax on his own industry, and he was speaking days before a Federal Reserve decision and weeks before the UK budget that will settle it.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 9 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO of Barclays, speaking at the bank's 24th Annual Financial Services Conference in New York
🎙️ Host: Dani Burger, Bloomberg anchor, on a simulcast of Bloomberg Open Interest for Bloomberg TV and radio
📰 Published: 14 September 2026 on YouTube (Bloomberg Podcasts)
🔴 YouTube | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 12 min
Key Takeaways
Three separate forces are pushing up long-dated government bond yields at once, and the central bank controls only one of them
Persistent inflation, rising government spending as a share of GDP, and a wave of debt issued for data centers and technology
A Fed that raises rates can calm the market for longer-dated bonds rather than unsettle it
His condition: the increases have to be telegraphed, gradual and tied to economic events
At Barclays, AI is the icing and the data and compute platforms underneath are the cake
He wants the people warning about existential AI risk to publish concrete proposals rather than warnings
Barclays was on nine of the ten big IPOs of the first half, and was on the SpaceX deal in the UK
The bank does securities in commodities and will not touch physical
A higher UK bank surcharge would raise little revenue and signal that success invites punishment
His argument is that retained capital is what the bank lends into the UK economy
1. Three Forces on Bonds
Burger opened by asking what the single most pressing issue facing financial services is. Venkatakrishnan named two — running large companies through a technology change, and the market environment — and then spent most of the interview on the second.
His answer is the bond market, and he broke it into three separate causes. "There's a confluence of three forces, Dani, which make the bond markets particularly interesting."
First, inflation that has not gone away. "One is that we've had persistent inflation." He attributed it to commodities and geopolitical events, some of it outside anyone's control
Second, government spending, and he made the point that it is not a national story. "The second thing is that government spending across the world, so this is true in New York, it's true in London, it's true in Tokyo, government spending across the world has been rising as a function of GDP, so debt to GDP is going up, pressuring the long end of the curves across the world."
Third, and this is the one specific to this cycle, the volume of new borrowing to build AI infrastructure. "And then the third thing is there's been a supply, a tremendous supply of debt, especially related to data centers and to tech."
All three push the same way, and the interview was recorded days before a Federal Reserve rate decision, with a Bank of England decision in the same week
2. What the Fed Controls
Burger asked how much of this is the policymakers' job, and whether they can stop inflation and long-term yields coming loose together.
His division of labor is precise. "Of the three things I said, the central bank controls the first." Inflation is the central bank's; the other two are not
The counterintuitive part is that acting on short-term rates is how you settle the long end. "And actually, the more they act on the front end, the better they probably can control the long end."
Burger put the conclusion to him directly: if this is a Fed that raises rates, does that help activity and subdue volatility in longer-dated yields?
He agreed, with three conditions attached. "When telegraphed and when gradual and when relatable to economic events, that's true in the starting point of a rate hiking cycle. Of course, later on things can change."
3. Fiscal Discipline's Enforcer
The second of his three forces sits with finance ministries, and Burger asked whether they are missing something.
He put debt-to-GDP squarely on the fiscal side — Treasury and finance officials around the world rather than central banks
The near-term test he named is the UK budget, due the following month, where the government has to balance taxes, investment and spending against long-term deficits
Burger pressed on whether the political appetite exists, noting that in the US the midterms have pushed deficits out of the conversation entirely
His answer concedes the politics and refuses the excuse. "I think political pressures are always great on policymakers, and maybe you can postpone in the short run, but these things are unavoidable in the long run." And: "fiscal discipline is a really important virtue."
Asked whether the bond market is now the only thing enforcing that discipline, he did not disagree: "That is an important mechanism."
4. AI Is Icing, Not the Cake
Burger raised the weekend's spike in AI fears and asked whether the banks funding the build-out have a responsibility to slow it down.
On existential risk he deferred to the people raising it, and then asked them for something. "I'm certainly not as well informed as they are, but I think it would be good of them, as they've raised this issue, also to give us concrete proposals on what they think we should be doing."
He then separated the extreme case from the ordinary one. "Now, at the same time, raising the specter at the extreme, in my opinion, does not take away the value of the mainstream capabilities of AI, to help improve companies and to make them more efficient."
The line he had used on stage minutes earlier is the one to keep: "AI is the icing on the cake, it's not the cake."
What the cake is, in his telling, is the unglamorous part. "The cake is the development of the infrastructure, data, compute platforms, and so on, to make ourselves more efficient so that then we can apply AI and gain on that efficiency."
On the risk to his own revenue if the technology slows, he was brief. "Well, certainly AI has been an important part of both debt and equity markets. And if that slows down, there could be an impact."
5. The Workforce Will Change
He volunteered the employment consequence rather than being asked about it, and framed it as an obligation on company leaders.
His claim is that using AI for efficiency changes the size and the shape of the workforce, and that the transition is management's problem to solve. "And we've got to make those transitions easy for companies, for individuals, through reskilling programs, through training programs."
He did not pretend the effect is neutral. "So I think there are certainly some types of jobs that will get affected as efficiency increases."
The plan at Barclays is retraining people into different roles and building the skills that pay off once the technology's effect is fully visible
The growth areas he named are all customer-facing: "We think there's going to be a great growth in personalization of services, in understanding and anticipating what your customer wants." He added cost and efficiency of service, and making innovation happen more smoothly
6. Nine of the Ten Big IPOs
Burger's sharpest question was whether Barclays is missing something, given it was not on the SpaceX listing and US rivals took top billing on the Anthropic offering.
He rejected the premise with a number and a correction. "So we were on nine of the 10 big IPOs in the first half. We were actually in SpaceX in the UK. I'm not going to comment on anything that's coming up."
On the franchise overall he claimed satisfaction rather than dominance, across both listings and mergers, with what he called a robust pipeline
His read on the second half was a workload rather than a forecast. "The first half was good, and the second half, bankers are busy, let's say. They're busy."
7. Mike Joo's Mandate
Barclays recently hired Mike Joo from Bank of America to co-head the investment bank, and Burger asked what success looks like.
The mandate he described is integration rather than expansion. "As I look forward, I think one of our great strengths in Barclays is an integrated investment banking offering between our trading and markets division, our banking division, and to continue to accelerate our growth in an integrated way across all the products we offer."
The same mandate goes to Adeel Khan, who will co-head the investment bank alongside Joo
Burger raised the structural pay gap between Barclays and its US competitors and asked whether he has to match it to hire
He said yes, twice. "We absolutely want top talent." And: "We are very competitive with the top talent, and we think we give them a great place in which to work." Asked flatly whether that means great pay: "Yes, absolutely. I mean, compensation's an important part of this. It certainly is."
8. Commodities, Not Physical
Asked whether the commodities boom is somewhere Barclays would lean in, he drew a line the rest of the industry has been crossing.
The scope is deliberately narrow. "We do a little in commodities. What we don't do is physical."
His framing of the bank is a fixed-income one — "we're the house that fixed income built" — and he listed financing, credit trading and interest-rate trading as among the best in the world, with financing in both stocks and bonds in the same category
Equities is the part he says is catching up, doing strongly of late and rounding out the franchise. His summary: a broad, stable markets business with the right blend of financing and intermediation, and geographical and sectoral coverage he is happy with
On energy he separated advisory from trading. The investment banking franchise in energy is one of the leading ones; "On the trading of commodities, we're taking a more careful approach."
Pressed on what careful means, he gave the dividing line again: "In my opinion, you can do the securities." And: "I think the physical is very hard."
9. The Damocles' Sword
The last question was about the UK bank surcharge, which Burger said some expect to rise from 3% to as much as 8%, and about whether he has had any assurance it will not.
His first objection is that the tax does not raise much. The amount the government gets out of the banking system is not that great, on his account
His second objection is the signal, and it is the line of the interview. "What it does is sends a signal to any industry that's successful that there can be a Damocles' sword hanging over your success."
The arithmetic he wants understood is that the government already gets more when the bank earns more. "Look, the more successful we are, even at a constant tax rate, which is, by the way, the highest for banks among the major jurisdictions, even at a constant tax rate, we pay more if we make more profit, right?" His conclusion: "Increasing that percentage take is, I think, not a good signal for growth."
On the government's position he was diplomatic and non-committal. "I've had very good interactions with the chancellor and with the government. I think they understand the importance of growth." He tied it to the government's own language about growth in every postcode, and noted Barclays is spread across the United Kingdom
The mechanism he says the tax would damage is lending. "And the more capital we have and the more capital we retain, the more we can lend into the economy, which is what we've been doing and want to do."
Asked whether Barclays could absorb the worst case, he declined to make it about capacity. "Look, the bank is running well. My issue is a simple one. It's an issue of principle. We think we can best help the country grow by investing in the country and lending into the country. And therefore, we need all the capital we can to do that."
Bonus Insights
He named technology as the first of his two pressing issues and then never came back to it in its own right, folding it into the AI answer instead
Burger framed Barclays as a large funder of the AI build-out when she asked about slowing the technology down, which is the context for his answer that a slowdown would hit both debt and equity markets
He declined twice to say anything about deals in progress, once on upcoming listings and once when the Anthropic offering was raised
He closed by checking the number on his own conference — the 24th edition — and thanking Bloomberg for covering it
His bottom line is that the bond market is being pushed by inflation, by government deficits and by AI borrowing at the same time, that a central bank raising short-term rates in a telegraphed way is the thing most likely to settle it, and that taxing a profitable bank harder takes away the capital it would otherwise lend.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Barclays (The house that fixed income built, in his words: financing, credit trading and rates among the best in the world, equities catching up, and no physical commodities)
SpaceX and Anthropic (The two listings Bloomberg used to suggest Barclays was being left out; he said the bank was on the SpaceX deal in the UK and would not comment on what is coming)
Bank of America (Where Mike Joo came from, hired to co-head the Barclays investment bank alongside Adeel Khan)
Federal Reserve and Bank of England (Both deciding on rates in the same week as the interview; on his account the central bank controls only the inflation leg of the three pressuring bond yields)
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