Up to 600 banking jobs are to be created by Barclays in Glasgow city centre, it was announced today.

The plan is to create a global services site to support the investment banking division, Barclays Capital, and wealth management division, Barclays Wealth.

First Minister Alex Salmond made the announcement while visiting Barclays’ wealth management division at its Aurora Building in Bothwell Street.

The 600 jobs will bring Barclays’ staffing in Scotland to more than 2000.

An initial recruitment phase would be for 350 posts, but the First Minister said grants would be made available for the creation of up to 600 jobs.

Mr Salmond said: “Barclays is already one of the top employers in Scotland and its plans to increase its presence here reinforces Scotland’s status as a global leader in finance.”

Ian Axe, head of operations, Barclays Capital and Barclays Wealth, said: “We have been clear about our desire to extend our existing infrastructure framework in Glasgow into a market-leading centre of excellence.”

The move comes after a number of job losses in the banking industry.

Royal Bank Of Scotland last week announced the loss of some 3500 jobs in England, while two weeks ago its insurance division DirectLine announced 440 job losses in Glasgow.

The HBOS failure and rescue by Lloyds TSB has seen 1000 jobs go in Scotland, while last week Standard Life announced the loss of 480 posts in Edinburgh.

There have also been rumours, denied by the company, that JP Morgan is about to shed jobs.

Today’s announcement comes amid annual results from Scottish Development International claiming its promotional work has been instrumental in generating more than £500m of investment.

Anna MacColl, interim chief executive of Scottish development International, said: “We have hit our targets and are encouraged by the range of new investment projects we have helped to secure during the last year, such as those by Skykon, GlaxoSmithKline, Ryanair, Tesco Personal Finance and Stena.

“This type of investment has secured over 5500 planned jobs and shows Scotland remains attractive to investors across a wide range of sectors.”