Image via Bank of England
The Bank of England’s monetary policy meeting that concluded yesterday saw the central bank leaving interest rates and its asset purchases steady at a pace of 0.25% and 435 billion GBP respectively.
While the policy meeting came out as widely expected, the markets were surprised to see that there was a dissenter from the MPC which split the BoE’s interest rate MPC vote to 8 – 1.
The Bank of England policy member Kristin Forbes was the dissenter who voted for a 25 basis point increase. However, other members of the MPC maintained that it would be appropriate to keep the asset purchases and interest rates unchanged.
Kristin Forbes said that the monetary policy has evolved to warrant an immediate rate hike. She also cited risks from inflation and said that she expects inflation to stay above the central bank’s target rate of 2% for at least the next three years.
Read more: https://www.orbex.com/blog/2017/03/boe-mpc-members-divided-interest-rates/