LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays reported a 24% rise in annual pretax profit on Thursday, slightly above expectations, as its investment bank reported strong performance for 2024 and slower than expected interest rate cuts sustained income in its domestic lending business. The British corporate, consumer and investment bank reported profit before tax for the year to December 31 of 8.11 billion pounds, slightly above the 8.07 billion pounds average of analysts' forecasts and higher than the 6.6 billion pounds it reported for the year prior.