Bank of England Maintains Bank Rate at 0.5% and continues with £125 Billion Asset Purchase Programme

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to leave the Bank base Rate unchanged at 0.5%. This record low rate has remained unchanged since it was first reduced to this level in March, and is expected to remain for at least the rest of this year.

The Committee also voted to continue with its 'Quantiative Easing' programme of asset purchases totalling £125 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves.

The Committee expects that the announced programme will take another two months to complete. The scale of the programme will be kept under review.

The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday 17 June.

The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A £75 billion programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The programme was increased to a total of £125 billion on 7 May 2009.

Information on the Asset Purchase Facility can be found on the Bank of England website at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/assetpurchases.htm
Purchases of almost £80 billion have been made under this facility since its use for monetary policy purposes was first announced after the Committee’s March meeting.