First-time Buyers
Interest rates held at 0.5%
Interest rates have been held at 0.5% for yet another month, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has announced.
Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary since the Bank slashed the base rate to record low levels, benefiting borrowers and savaging savers.
Analysts believe rates will not rise until spring 2015.
The Bank also voted to keep its £375bn quantitative easing (QE) programme unchanged.
Last month Bank Governor Mark Carney ditched his forward guidance policy linking a rise in rates to jobless figures.
Carney said last year that rates would not begin to rise until the unemployment rate in the UK fell to 7%.
However, a rapid decline in the unemployment rate – which Carney conceded has surprised the Bank – left the rate at just 7.1% by the end of 2013.
As such he has been forced into something of a U-turn on forward guidance, attempting to push back expectations of a rate rise.
