Bank of England interest rate stays at 0.5% while Banks increase Mortgages

The Bank of England announced today it’s decision on the interest rate and voted to leave the current historic low of 0.5% – which it has been since the introduced in March 2009.

They also decided to maintain the level of the Asset Purchase programme at £325 billion, which it expects to take a further 2 months to complete.

Many analysts generally expect the interest rates managed by the Bank of England to be maintain at 0.5%

However this has just come in the wake of Halifax and RBS increasing their standard variable rates (SVR) for mortgages by 0.5% and 0.25% respectively.

Ian McCafferty, chief economic adviser at the CBI business group, said:

“Since the MPC has been signalling that the current policy stance is broadly appropriate, it appears that the economic climate would have to deteriorate to prompt a further extension of QE.

“Nevertheless, with economic conditions fragile and the level of uncertainty high, monetary policy decisions are still likely to be finely-balanced,”