- Mark Carney, BoE Governor
The Bank of England is more likely to hike interest rates than to cut them over the course of the next two years, and has plenty of scope to stimulate the UK economy if needed, said Martin Weale. Mr. Weale voted to raise the central bank's key rate during the second half of 2014 but abandoned the call at the beginning of last year. The policy maker also played down the significance of the turbulence in financial markets. Meanwhile, economists pushed back their bets on when the BoE would start to hike rates to early 2017, due to a weaker global economy and stubbornly low inflation. Moreover, Weale said that the BoE could cut rates to lower than 0.5% and introduce a new round of quantitative easing should the necessity arise. The scope of asset purchases could be expanded to include long-term holdings of private sector assets as well as government bonds.
In the meantime, the head of the BoE warned that Britain's potential exit from the European Union could be the single biggest risk to the UK economy. Mark Carney highlighted that the central bank would remain neutral in the debate. However, Mr Carney said that international risks such as recent volatility in China were a greater problem for Britain's economy.
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