Lawrence White, Iain Withers, and Muvija Ma

LONDON (Reuters] -Barclays posted better third quarter results than anticipated Thursday as it followed Wall Street counterparts to reap bumper investment banking fees resulting from a surge trading and advisory mandates.

British bank posted profit before tax in excess of 1.6 billion pounds (or $2.76 billion) during the July-September period. It was double what it reported last year, which was 1.1 billion.

Barclays Barclays stated that the advisory and equity business of (LON:), had recorded their highest performance during the first nine months. That compares to 10.5% in the previous year.

These results were helped by 622 million pounds of cash released by the bank to pay bad debt charges.

This provision release was made in spite of a difficult period for the British economic, which saw disruptions to supply chains and fuel shortages. These events drew down consumer confidence and business confidence.

The bank nevertheless upgraded its UK economic outlooks. This was a pessimistic forecast, and the bank stated that default rates will remain low.

Jes Staley CEO of Barclays said, “While the CIB’s performance remains an area of strength in the group,”

($1 = 0.7242 pounds)