As widely expected, the Bank of England on Thursday kept its interest rate at a historic-low and the size of quantitative easing at GBP 375 billion.
The Monetary Policy Committee governed by Mark Carney voted to leave the key bank rate unchanged at 0.50 percent. The rate has been at the current 0.50 percent since March 2009.
The panel also decided to maintain the asset purchase programme at GBP 375 billion. The previous change in asset purchases was in July 2012, when it was raised by GBP 50 billion.
The bank first launched quantitative easing in March 2009 with an initial value of GBP 75 billion.
In August 2013, the bank pledged not to hike the interest rate until the unemployment rate falls to 7 percent.
As the unemployment started falling faster than estimated to a level below the target, the BoE widened the scope of its forward guidance last February, and assured markets that interest rates will not be raised before the second quarter of 2015.
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June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.