The British bank lent £750m to the country’s new landowning elite in the first half of this year, mostly through a government scheme to boost farm productivity...The Sunday Times has established that the five [Mugabe’s ministers] have received cash for their farms under the scheme to which Barclays is one of the main contributors...Barclays refused to confirm or deny whether the ministers or other blacklisted regime figures were its customers, on the basis of client confidentiality...Yesterday Zimbabwe opposition figures called for an investigation into how the Barclays funds had been spent. “Barclays is giving money to this regime and propping it up in an opaque process,” said Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change...A spokeswoman for Barclays said...“We are committed to continuing to provide a service to those customers in what is clearly a difficult operating environment. We are also committed to the welfare of our employees,” she said. [refers to Standard Chartered]