Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rate little moved after Bank of England leaves policy unchanged

The Pound Sterling experienced little movement after the Bank of England announced at the conclusion of its two-day long meeting that it was leaving monetary policy unchanged for another month.

The BOE’s Monetary Policy Committee chose to leave interest rates at the record low level of 0.5% and maintained its monthly quantitative easing policy at £375 billion. The outcome was widely forecast by economists and as such the Pound was little moved.

The BOE is set to publish the minutes of this month’s policy meeting on the 21st of May.

A report released earlier in the session by mortgage lender Halifax showed that property prices in the UK fell by 0.2% last month. The data eased some of the concerns raised over a possible overheating of the UK property market.

The Central Bank remains under pressure from expectations by economists that it will hike interest rates in the early part of 2015.

The expectation and recent run of strong data releases has seen the Pound leap to multi-year highs against the US Dollar.

“With the UK economy seemingly starting off the second quarter strongly following GDP growth of 0.8% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter, the unemployment rate falling markedly to 6.9% in three months to February and annual house price inflation moving above 10.0% on the Nationwide’s measure in April, there is growing pressure on the Bank of England to seriously consider hiking interest rates,” said Howard Archer from IHS Global Insight.

Against the Euro the Pound was softer as the European Central also left interest rates on hold at the record low level of 0.25%.

Pound (GBP) Exchange Rates

[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
Pound Sterling,,US Dollar,1.6961 ,
Pound Sterling,,Euro,1.2165 ,
Pound Sterling,,Australian Dollar,1.8076 ,
Pound Sterling,,New Zealand Dollar,1.9599 ,
US Dollar,,Pound Sterling,0.5896 ,
Euro,, Pound Sterling ,0.8219 ,
Australian Dollar,, Pound Sterling ,0.5530 ,
New Zealand Dollar,,Pound Sterling,0.5106 ,

[/table]