UK Asset Purchase Facility

Our Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decides what monetary policy action to take. The MPC sets and announces policy eight times a year (roughly once every six weeks). In this video, the MPC discusses the decisions taken in February 2022 and answers questions from the press.

The dollar found a footing in Asia on Thursday, pausing the week's slide as a slump in tech and social media stocks soured appetite for riskier currencies, and as traders awaited central bank meetings in Britain and Europe. The risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars fell slightly in morning trade. Sterling and the euro did not extend recent gains, and the common currency was marginally weaker at $1.1297. The yen held at 114.41 per dollar. Shares in Facebook owner Meta plunged more than 20% after the bell as earnings and ...

Out of the two central bank meetings happening tomorrow, the main expectation for the ECB meeting is to not be a major event. Generally, there is a pretty broad consensus that the central bank will keep its policy on hold for at least one more month. There are a few fundamental issues that could cause a major surprise. Across the Channel, however, the expectation for the BOE’s policy meeting is to be quite active. There won’t be just a change in rate policy, but also in asset purchases, as well as the outlook for the trajectory of ...

For all the recent talk of the Fed and ‘quantitative tightening’, it’s the Bank of England that’s poised to lead the charge on reducing the size of its balance sheet. Starting this week, policymakers are set to end a policy of reinvesting proceeds from government bonds maturing within its portfolio. We look at what this means for markets. What is the market impact of ending bond reinvestments? The Bank of England is poised to hike rates to 0.5% this week. And this means that the Bank's own threshold for reducing the size of its ...

GBP moves higher on a weaker USD ahead of this week’s Bank of England meeting. Todd Colvin explains.

For a second month in a row, the BoE MPC surprised financial markets with its policy decision in December. Having failed to deliver the widely anticipated tightening in November when an updated Monetary Policy Report (MPR) was hot off the press, the central bank unexpectedly voted 8-1 to raise Bank Rate at its year-end meeting despite the absence of new economic forecasts and only limited fresh data. Both outcomes have left investors somewhat cautious about this week’s decision. However, with inflation still climbing, economic growth ...