BoE keeps UK interest rate held at historic low of 0.5%

BoE keeps UK interest rate held at historic low of 0.5%
(Source The Times)
The Bank of England paused for breath today in its battle to combat the economic slump, holding interest rates at 0.5 per cent and staying its hand over any other changes in its recession-fighting strategy of quantitative easing.
The Bank switched to a “wait and see” stance after a six-month long scramble to shore-up the economy with drastic interest rate cuts and, since last month, a radical move to jump-start growth by “printing money”.
The noon verdict (09 April)from the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee confirmed City predictions that official interest rates would be left on hold at their present 315-year low of just 0.5 per cent.
Mervyn King, the Bank’s Governor, had made clear last month that he saw little scope for further cuts. The record of the Monetary Policy Committee's last meeting showed it was anxious that further rate cuts could backfire, deterring banks from lending and hitting savers.

The Bank had also been widely expected to order no change for the moment in its drastic “quantitative easing” plan to pump extra, newly-created money through the economy by buying up a range of assets from the financial markets.
The controversial move to buy assets worth a total of £75 billion over three months began only last month, and is less than a third complete, with the Bank having so far purchased some £26 billion of UK government bonds or gilts, and about £400 million of corporate bonds — company IOUs. Read Article...
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6065520.ece

ECB expected to cut rates to lowest level since the introduction of the Euro

ECB expected to cut rates to lowest level since the introduction of the Euro
(March 5, 2009)

Online and in real time: ECB press conference, from its premises in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
At 2.30 p.m. CET the ECB President and Vice-President explain the Governing Council's monetary policy decisions and answer journalists' questions.
Webcast of ECB press conference on 5 March 2009
http://www.thomson-webcast.net/de/dispatching/?ecb_090305_stream_video

The European Central Bank has cut its main interest rate by a half percentage point to 1.5 percent amid increasingly grim economic news.

The Bank of England earlier Thursday cut its rates by a half percentage point to 0.5 percent.

Bank of England (BoE) expected to move towards Quantitative Easing (QE)

Rate cut BoE and ECB ( November 6)

LONDON – The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are both expected to cut interest rates Thursday as they face sharply lower growth prospects as a result of the world's financial turmoil.
There's even talk that the Bank of England may reduce interest rates by as much as a full percentage point for the first time since four cuts of that size in 1992-3 when Britain's economy was last mired in recession.
Most economists, however, expect both to follow the U.S. Federal Reserve's lead and cut by a half point, which would take their benchmark rates to 3.25 percent from 3.75 percent for the ECB and to 4.00 percent from 4.5 percent for the Bank of England.
Both central banks, which followed the Fed and other banks in a coordinated cut on Oct. 8, have been criticized in some quarters for being slow to respond the sharp economic slowdown this year given their prevailing fears about inflation. The European Central Bank actually raised rates a quarter point in July as inflation spiked sharply higher.