Strong performance in the corporate and investment bank, which saw full-year income increase 22% to £12.5 billion, offset a sharp incline in impairment charges as a result of the deteriorating economic outlook brought about by the pandemic.

Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected a fourth-quarter net loss of £44.88 million to bring about a full-year net profit of £1.22 billion.

The final earnings report of 2020 followed a surprisingly strong third quarter in which the bank recorded a £611 million net profit.

Addressing the drop in RoTE, Staley said the bank was able to remain profitable in each quarter of 2020 due to the diversified business model implemented five years ago, with the investment bank reacting differently to the consumer banking division.

"Whilst our consumer bank struggled and brought down that profitability, in large part because we took significant impairment charges to build a reserve, the investment bank actually had a return on capital in the year of over 13%, so that has kept the bank profitable each quarter," he said.