2021.09.2311:34:00UTC+00Bank Of England Holds Rate; QE

The Bank of England maintained its key interest rate at a record low and quantitative easing, as widely expected, on Thursday.

The Monetary Policy Committee unanimously decided to leave the key interest rate unchanged at 0.10 percent.

The MPC also retained the existing stock of corporate bond purchases at GBP 20 billion and the government bond purchases target at GBP 875 billion, taking the size of total quantitative easing to GBP 895 billion.

While seven members voted to maintain the quantitative easing, Dave Ramsden and Michael Saunders voted to reduce the target for the stock of government bond purchases from GBP 875 billion to GBP 840 billion.

Ramsden and Saunders preferred to stop the current asset purchase programme as soon as practical after this meeting rather than continuing it until around the end of the year, as currently planned.

Citing supply constraints on output, the bank downgraded its growth outlook for the third quarter of 2021. The level of UK GDP for the third quarter was revised down by around 1 percent since the August Report.

Inflation was expected to rise further in the near term, to slightly above 4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021. Nonetheless, inflation was expected to fall back to close to the 2 percent target in the medium term.