Investing.com - The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in January and announced no change to its asset purchase facility program, it said on Thursday.
The BoE said it was holding the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, in a widely expected move.
The central bank also said it was to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
The minutes of the meeting of the central bank’s monetary policy committee will be published on Wednesday, January 21.
Minutes of the central bank's December policy meeting showed that Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty voted for a 0.25% hike in the benchmark rate to 0.75% for the fifth consecutive meeting.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.5064 from around 1.5063 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7812 from 0.7816 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly higher. London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.8%, the EURO STOXX 50 surged 2.3%, France's CAC 40 rose 2.2%, while Germany's DAX advanced 1.75%.