Bank of England holds interest rates at record low

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Bank of England in Threadneedle Street, London.
Image: Adrian Pingstone.

The Bank of England has held UK interest rates at 0.5% for another month. The rate is the lowest ever, and has remained in place since March last year as part of the central bank's response to the global financial crisis. Most analysts had predicted the rate to go unchanged.

Quantitative easing, also begun in March 2009, will continue in January. This involves the Bank purchasing a total of £200 billion in assets. In a brief statement released today, the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee said it expected the programme to take another month to complete. The decision will be revisited in February, when more official economic data and forecasts are available.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank has been responsible for setting the UK's official interest rate each month since 1997. Prior to this the base rate was controlled by the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

"News Release: Bank of England Maintains Bank Rate at 0.5% and continues with £200 Billion Asset Purchase Programme" — Bank of England, January 7, 2010
David Milliken. "Bank leaves policy steady" — Reuters, January 7, 2010
"Freeze on UK interest rates continues" — BBC News Online, January 7, 2010
"On This Day: 6 May - 1997: Brown sets Bank of England free" — BBC News Online, May 6, 1997

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.