Bank Rate held at 0.5% and the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at £375 billion

The Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5% and to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
Published on 05 March 2015

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee at its meeting today voted to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.

The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday 18 March.

Notes 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 previous change in the size of that programme was an increase of £50 billion to a total of £375 billion on 5 July 2012.

The Bank will continue to offer to purchase high-quality private sector assets on behalf of the Treasury, financed by the issue of Treasury bills, in line with the arrangements announced on 29 January 2009 and 29 November 2011.

In line with the arrangements announced on 11 December 2014, the March 2015 MPC meeting will be the first for which the Bank will publish, after a delay of eight years, written transcripts of that part of the meeting at which policy is decided. The Bank will also publish, alongside those written transcripts, key staff inputs that informed the policy decision.

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