7 January 2010

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 £200 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves.

The Committee expects the announced programme to take another month 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 20 January.

Note to Editors

The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The most recent change in the size of that programme was an increase of £25 billion to a total of £200 billion on 5 November 2009.

Information on the Asset Purchase Facility can be found on the Bank of England website at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/assetpurchases.htm. Purchases of £193 billion have been made under this facility since its use for monetary policy purposes was first announced after the Committee's March meeting.

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