High street banks post figures in busy earnings week

Hands-on chairman John McFarlane - who has taken over at the helm until a replacement is found - will be looked to for further clarity on cost cutting and his aims for the business, while the group and its rivals will also be pressed for reaction to the Chancellor's incoming new 8% surcharge on bank profits.

Mr McFarlane said Mr Jenkins was fired after lacklustre revenue growth as the banking giant's shares remain at the level they were six years ago.

But it is thought a programme of further job losses will be one of the only ways to address the bank's under performance and hit a target of doubling its share price.

The group's interims are expected to show a drop in investment banking revenues - down 9% to £1.96 billion, according to Investec analyst Ian Gordon.

Morgan Stanley is forecasting group second quarter underlying pre-tax profits to rise 5% to £1.7 billion, but this would be a 9% drop on the previous three months.

Results so far this year have been overshadowed by almost £1 billion in extra provisions for mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) and its involvement in the foreign exchange scandal, which landed the bank with a £1.53 billion fine by US and UK authorities in May.

Shareholders are keen to see Barclays return to its former glory, with speculation that a change at the top will herald a refocus on its investment banking business to drive profits once again.

Royal Bank of Scotland follows on Thursday amid speculation over the timing of the Government's first move to sell off shares in the taxpayer-backed lender.

Chancellor George Osborne has already said he wants to start selling shares in RBS by the end of the year and it is thought this plan could begin as soon as September.

RBS results come after a tough few months for the group in the wake of yet another IT blunder and further fines for the forex rigging affair.

An IT glitch saw around 600,000 banking payments fail to go through, which took the group days to resolve, hitting credits and direct debits and also affecting tax credits and disability living allowance payments.

Alongside Barclays, RBS was also one of the six banks hit with fines for forex manipulation in May, agreeing to pay a further 669 million US dollars (£428 million) to US authorities, which comes on top of a £399 million penalty last November to regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

RBS slumped into the red by £446 million in the first quarter after putting aside cash to cover the forex scandal, as well as restructuring charges.

Half-year results are set to show a bottom-line loss of £300 million, according to a number of City analysts.

On an underlying basis, Morgan Stanley expects second quarter operating profits to dip to £1.4 billion from £1.63 billion in the first quarter, which would also be sharply lower than the £2 billion adjusted earnings reported a year earlier.

Fellow taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group is due to post yet more hefty provisions for PPI mis-selling when it reports on Friday as the industry struggles to put the scandal behind it.

With PPI compensation across the industry now topping £20 billion, Lloyds is expected to add another £1 billion to its bill, including its recent record £117 million fine by the City watchdog for the way it handled PPI complaints.

But despite a potential second quarter hit from these provisions and other costs such as industry levies, underlying interim profits are still expected to rise to around £4.2 billion, up from £3.8 billion a year earlier.

Lloyds is benefiting from the recovery in the wider economy as better conditions mean reduced levels of bad debt and increased lending.

Its turnaround in recent years has helped the Government sell down its stake to less than 15%, down from 40% after its £20.5 billion bailout at the height of the financial crisis.

The Government confirmed last month it would launch a multi-billion pound ''Tell Sid''-style share sale open to retail investors within the next 12 months, although there is speculation the Treasury is first likely to offload as much stock as it can through its ongoing successful trading plan to institutional investors.

Lloyds's latest update is also likely to see further dividend cheer for its three million investors after it made its first shareholder payout since 2008 following full-year results in February.

The bank paid out £535 million in dividends, marking a milestone in its recovery, and has already said it intends to pay an interim and final divi in 2015.

Half-year figures from the owner of Alton Towers on Thursday will reveal the impact of last month's rollercoaster crash that left five people seriously injured and led to a four-day shut down at the theme park.

Brokers at Jefferies estimate the closure at the 500-acre Staffordshire theme park last month cost Merlin Entertainments between £2 million and £3 million in lost takings following the accident on its Smiler rollercoaster.

June accounts for around 10% of the theme park's annual revenues, while the key months of July and August make up a combined 35% of sales across the year.

Jefferies experts believe Merlin - which operates 100 attractions in 22 countries including Madame Tussauds, Legoland Parks, and Thorpe Park in the UK - will report a slowdown in like-for-like sales growth after the crash, to 2.4% for the second quarter after a 3.3% rise in the previous 18 weeks.

This is also thought to be as a result of an expected 5% sales drop at its Legoland sites around the world against tough comparatives from a year earlier, when tickets receipts were boosted by the successful Lego Movie.

But Jefferies analysts still forecast that Merlin's interim earnings will rise 5.8% to £127 million.

However management is likely to face questions over whether any of the group's other UK attractions such as Legoland and Chessington have seen a shortfall in visitor numbers as a result of the Alton Towers accident - which saw two women each lose part of a leg.

Brokers have also speculated that another effect of the crash may be longer lead times and more testing before Merlin launches any new rides like Smiler, which cost £18 million and opened in May 2013.

Analysts at Panmure Gordon suggest that the group could face further costs in subsequent years from fines and penalties in relation to the rollercoaster crash.

British Gas owner Centrica will come under the spotlight on Thursday when its new chief executive presents the findings of his wide-ranging review in a bid to stem losses at the business.

The group said "everything is on the table" after it tumbled to a £1.4 billion full-year loss in March, hit by large write-downs and falling gas and oil prices.

It also slashed its final dividend to its army of small shareholders by 30% to cut costs.

Brokers at Jefferies expect new Centrica boss Iain Conn, a former BP executive who took over in January, to announce up to £400 million of new savings to be delivered by 2017, in addition to £100 million of cuts announced in February.

The analysts suggest Centrica's options are to reduce losses at its gas-fired power stations, generate more cash from its British Gas home services unit, and cut costs at its upstream production arm, which has been hit as wholesale energy prices tumble.

Jefferies forecasts half-year pre-tax profits will edge up 1% to £898 million year-on-year, as colder weather and lower energy costs just offset big falls in its upstream division.

The figures come amid continued public scrutiny of the sector.

Earlier this month the Competition and Markets Authority said British households were overpaying suppliers for their energy by around £1.2 billion a year and failing to switch to get the best deals.

A week later British Gas said it would cut household gas prices by 5% at the end on August, which comes on top of an earlier 5% price reduction in January.

However, brokers at Jefferies pointed out that wholesale 2015/16 winter gas prices have fallen by 23% over the last 12 months.

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