Investing.com - The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged 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 rate has been held at that level since March 2009. 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.
Minutes from the central bank's policy meeting showed that eight members were in favor of leaving the key interest rate at a record low of 0.5%, in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous meeting. Dissenting member Ian McCafferty voted for a 0.25% hike in the benchmark rate to 0.75% for the fifth consecutive month.
All nine members were in favor of making no changes to the central bank's £375 billion asset-purchase program.
According to the minutes, rates are expected to rise gradually but to lower levels than previous cycles. The majority of policymakers said the expected pickup in inflation would be “a little more modest than previously assumed.”
Expectations for a rate hike by the Bank of England have been pushed back to late-2016 due to a recent spate of weaker than expected data and amid uncertainty over a referendum on whether or not Britain should stay in the European Union.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.4411 from around 1.4391 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7588 from 0.7598 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly lower. London’s FTSE 100 sank 1.85%, the EURO STOXX 50 dropped 2.45%, France's CAC 40 slumped 2.8%, while Germany's DAX tumbled 2.75%.