LONDON Barclays said its profit for the third quarter dipped slightly from a year ago, nonetheless beating expectations as strong performance in its consumer and credit cards business offset sliding revenues in its investment bank.

The British lender reported pretax profit for the period of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.33 billion), down from 2 billion pounds a year ago and above consensus analyst forecasts of 1.77 billion pounds.

($1 = 0.8151 pounds)

(This story has been corrected to say 'beats,' not 'misses,' in the headline)

(Reporting By Lawrence White, editing by Iain Withers)