Embarrassments past and present

In this advert, campaigners draw on Barclays' chequered history to provide context for their current environmental practices. Barclays may not be the only bank with origins in financing slavery, but it is certainly distinguished by the substantial connections it had to South Africa's apartheid regime, such as purchase of defence bonds and a Barclays director on the government-appointed defence advisory board. Some have suggested that this colonial mindset persists in Barclays' bankrolling of fossil fuels driving the Climate Crisis, which is already ravaging the least economically-secure countries of the world, where "those that have done the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the greatest price."