Bank of England holds rates at 0.5%

by Richard Kilner

Story link: Bank of England holds rates at 0.5%

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England has announced that it has chosen to retain the British interest rate at the record low of 0.5%, as it has been since March last year.

The decision was widely anticipated, with 95% of those questioned in a recent Nationwide survey predicting that interest rates would be unchanged.

In addition to this, the £200bn quantitative easing programme of asset purchases continues, and is forecast to end next month.

However, the scale of the scheme, which has already been increased twice, remains under review.

Under the initial plan for quantiative easing, which effectively means printing money, the scheme was due to come to an end in August 2009.