Bank of England avoids interest rate cut as Mark Carney bows out January 30, 2020 The Bank of England has held off from an interest rate cut despite a surge in expectations that it would reduce rates for the first time in four years. Today’s decision came even as the Bank slashed its long-term growth forecasts for the UK economy to account for Brexit disruption and Britain’s productivity crisis. Read [...]
DEBATE: Should the Bank of England cut interest rates this week? January 29, 2020 Should the Bank of England cut interest rates this week? Simon Ward, economic adviser at Janus Henderson Investors, says YES. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) keeps making mistakes because it ignores monetary trends. It hiked rates in August 2018 even though 12-month broad money growth (as measured by non-financial M4) had slumped from 6.5 per [...]
Incoming BoE head Andrew Bailey to be grilled by LCF mini-bond investigation January 23, 2020 Incoming Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey will be interviewed about his oversight of collapsed investment firm London Capital and Finance (LCF), an independent investigation said today. LCF collapsed in January 2019, leaving 11,600 investors who bought its mini-bonds facing collective losses of up to £237m. While LCF itself and its marketing material was regulated [...]
Bank of England and City watchdog urge firms to accelerate Libor transition January 16, 2020 The City regulator and Bank of England have joined forces to urge banks and insurers to accelerate plans to transition away from the discredited Libor interest rate benchmark. Firms have until October to stop writing loans tied to the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which is embedded within some $350 trillion (£268 trillion) of financial [...]
Cautious lenders left companies with lowest level of credit since 2008 January 16, 2020 The amount of credit made available to corporates last quarter fell to a level not seen since the Global Financial Crisis. The Bank of England’s (BoE) credit conditions survey released today showed that available credit for corporates fell for its sixth successive quarter in the fourth quarter of 2019. It dropped to minus 9.2 in [...]
Bank of England policymaker maintains interest rate cut view January 15, 2020 Bank of England (BoE) policymaker Michael Saunders has said he is sticking to his view that interest rates should be cut because of weaknesses in the UK’s labour market and wider economy. “It probably will be appropriate to maintain an expansionary monetary policy stance and possibly to cut rates further, in order to reduce risks [...]
Carney rate cut comment sends pound crashing to two-week low January 9, 2020 The pound slumped to a near two-week low today after Mark Carney warned that the Bank of England (BoE) could cut interest rates to boost the economy. Sterling dropped as much as 0.55 per cent against the dollar to $1.301 as the central bank governor said a cut was possible if weaknesses in the economy [...]
Central banks running low on ammunition to fight recession, Mark Carney warns January 8, 2020 Central banks may not be able to fight off a sharp economic downturn because their monetary policy arsenals are still depleted following the global financial crisis, outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned. “It’s generally true that there’s much less ammunition for all the major central banks than they previously had and I’m [...]
Regulator ramps up Lloyd’s of London whistleblowing monitoring December 23, 2019 The Bank of England has ramped up its monitoring of Lloyd’s on London’s whistleblowing processes, it said today. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) announced the insurance market had agreed to extra checks. Read more: FCA head Andrew Bailey confirmed as next Bank of England governor In February, Lloyd’s told the PRA its only anonymous whistleblowing [...]
UK GDP growth revised up but ‘shows underlying slowing of economy’, ONS December 20, 2019 A revised estimate showed UK gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2019 showing an underlying slowing of the UK economy. This was higher than the expected 0.3 per cent but reflected high domestic and global uncertainty, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) said today in its quarterly [...]
