The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to continue with its programme of asset purchases totalling £325 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves. The Committee expects the announced programme of asset purchases to take another two months to complete. The scale of the programme will be kept under review. The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday 21 March. Notes to Editors The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on ... (full story)