Barclays is to retender the group’s audit contract as has confirmed that incumbent PwC will be excluded from the process. PwC has held Barclays’ external audit contract since 1896. Its total fees for both audit and non-audit work for the 2013 audit was £45m, marginally up from £44m in the previous year.

The contract is the second most lucrative among the large banks – HSBC’s audit is worth £26m (2012) and the Royal Bank of Scotland’s total audit is valued at £43.2m (2012/13).

PwC’s audit partner has rotated every five years, and the current audit partner – Andrew Ratcliffe – has been in post since 2010 and is set to continue until the conclusion of the 2014 audit.

But on the audit tender, the bank said it had weighed up the new rules around tendering, in addition to speaking with key investors, and decided to put its audit out to tender.