The Bank of England keeps the interest rate unchanged at 4.50%, as expected

The Central Bank of England announced its decision on monetary policy for March 2025 and was as follows:

- Fixing the interest rate at the levels of 4.50%.

- The result of the vote on the bank interest rate was 8-1, while the forecast was 7-2.

- We have seen significant progress in reducing inflation.

- This progress allowed to gradually roll back the restrictions of monetary policy while maintaining its restrictive character.

- The uncertainty on World Trade Policy has increased since the last policy meeting. - Geopolitical uncertainties have increased.

- Indicators of financial market volatility have increased globally.

- Indicators still point to weak growth.

- A gradual and cautious approach to further rollback of monetary policy restrictions is appropriate.

- If inflation pressures decrease, this calls for a less restrictive course of the bank interest rate.

- But if there are side effects associated with high inflation in the near term, then this calls for a relatively tighter course of monetary policy.

- Monetary policy will need to continue to be restrained long enough for inflation risks to return.

- The efforts of the British central bank to continue to achieve the 2% target in the medium term have been further dissipated.

 

After the decision, the GBPUSD/USD pair rose slightly to approximately 1.2980 levels from about 1.2950 earlier, but it is still down 0.2% during the day amid the strength of the dollar after yesterday's Fed meeting.

We expect that the Bank of England will try to avoid cutting interest rates too much and too fast for fear of causing further inflationary pressures.