- Bank of England minutes
Minutes of the latest BoE's Monetary Policy Meeting showed that officials remained split on hiking interest rates, with the majority of policy makers voted against immediate rate lift, while two officials were in favour for the third consecutive month. However, all MPC members were unanimous on maintaining the asset purchase facility unchanged. Thus, the MPC agreed in October to leave the BoE's benchmark interest rate at all-time low of 0.5% and the total size of its bond-buying stimulus programme unchanged at 375 billion pounds. The minutes showed that MPC members Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty reiterated their call for a lift in the benchmark rate to 0.75% but were outnumbered by the remaining seven members of the nine-member panel including Governor Mark Carney. Central bank's officials became more downbeat about Britain's economic prospects in October, highlighting increasing headwinds from abroad as well as domestic slowdown. Most policymakers believed there was insufficient evidence of prospective inflationary pressures to justify an immediate increase in the bank rate. Annual inflation declined to 1.2% in September, half a percentage point lower than the MPC had forecast in August and well below the BOE's 2% target.
The British Pound weakened by 0.3% against the US Dollar after the release, prolonging earlier losses, to reach $1.6023.
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