Bank of England Maintains Bank Rate at 0.5%

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee at its meeting today voted to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.  The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday 22 April.

The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The previous change in the size of that programme was an increase of £50 billion to a total of £375 billion on 5 July 2012.

Information on the Asset Purchase Facility can be found on the Bank of England website at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/Pages/qe/default.aspx.

The Bank will continue to offer to purchase high-quality private sector assets on behalf of the Treasury, financed by the issue of Treasury bills, in line with the arrangements announced on 29 January 2009 and 29 November 2011.

Author: Martin North

Martin North is the Principal of Digital Finance Analytics

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