Investing.com - The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in February 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, February 18.
Minutes from the central bank's January policy meeting showed that the Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to keep rates on hold and its quantitative-easing program unchanged.
Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty dropped their vote for a 0.25% hike in the benchmark rate to 0.75% for the first time in six meetings.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.5249 from around 1.5241 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7494 from 0.7498 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly lower. London’s FTSE 100 shed 0.4%, the EURO STOXX 50 declined 0.7%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.55%, while Germany's DAX slumped 0.3%.