BREAKING: Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.25%

The Bank of England (BOE) opted to hold base interest rates at record lows Thursday and to maintain the size of its newly enlarged asset-purchasing program.

The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously in September to hold the base rate at 0.25 percent, which was cut in August. It also voted unanimously to maintain the size of its corporate bonds purchases at up to £10 billion ($13.2 billion) and government bond purchases at £435 billion.

U.K. economic data has improved since the bank introduced the large batch of stimulus measures last month. Official retails sales data for August came in stronger than expected on Thursday and last month’s Markit/CIPS U.K. services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rebounded sharply from July’s 89-month low. However, it is unclear how long the upbeat data trend will last.

The U.K. economy has also been boosted by the weaker pound, which slumped after the vote to leave the European Union on June 23. At $1.32 to the pound, sterling is down around 12 percent from the peak it hit just prior the referendum.

“Sterling has been trading very well, it has been very stable, but actually I wouldn’t attribute so much of that to the Bank of England. Carney has been, in the last week or so, trying to recover a bit of credibility and suggest that it is down to their messages. But the market view is that is a little tenuous,” Richard de Meo, founder of Foenix Partners, told CNBC on Thursday.

The Bank of England has published a list of senior secured corporate bonds that are eligible for purchase. Issuers include FTSE 100-listed AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, BAT, British Telecom, Centric and GlaxoSmithKline. The Dow companies with eligible bonds are McDonald’s, General Electric, IBM, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Apple and Wal-Mart.

Source: CNBC