Bank of England pauses interest rate hikes as economy slows

The Bank of England has stopped its string of interest rate hikes as the British economy slows, but it insists it is not taking the recent decline in inflation for granted.

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted 5-4 on Thursday to maintain Bank Rate at 5.25%, despite the unexpected deceleration of Britain's high pace of price inflation the day before.

The 5.5% rate hike was approved by the House of Representatives thanks to the votes of Jon Cunliffe, Megan Greene, Jonathan Haskel, and Catherine Mann.

The Bank of England did not raise interest rates for the first time since December 2021.

Tighter monetary policy is having an effect on the job market and the actual economy, the MPC said.

It highlighted significant evidence of weakening in the property market and lowered its prediction for economic growth in the period of July-September to just 0.1% from the 0.4% predicted in August.

The Bank of England warned that growth would be slower than expected for the rest of the year.

It highlighted that other measures of the labor market did not support the record growth in worker pay that has been a major concern for the BoE, signaling that policymakers expected it to wind down soon.

Despite renewed increasing pressure from oil prices, the BoE predicts "significant further" CPI inflation in the short term, indicating reduced annual energy inflation.

However, it warned that services inflation would continue to rise.

After the Federal Reserve of the United States decided to halt its rate hikes the day before, the Bank of England followed suit and put a stay on its own rate increases. The European Central Bank increased interest rates last week, but this increase may be the last for the time being.

The MPC reaffirmed that it was ready to increase interest rates once more if necessary.

A "further tightening in monetary policy would be required if there were evidence of more persistent inflationary pressures," the statement read, restating previous assurances that policy would be "sufficiently restrictive for sufficiently long" to bring inflation down to the 2% target from August's 6.7% reading.

Governor Andrew Bailey and other members of the MPC have recently indicated the BoE was close to suspending its run of interest rate hikes, but they have also emphasized that borrowing costs are likely to remain high to ensure inflation pressures are squeezed out of the economy.

Bailey praised the recent decline in inflation and BoE projections that it would continue to diminish in a separate statement on Thursday. However, he stressed that there was no room for complacency. To ensure inflation returns to normal levels, we will continue to take the appropriate measures.

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As part of its efforts to shepherd the economy through the global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, the MPC agreed to accelerate the pace of its strategy to reduce the huge stockpile of government bonds that the central bank collected over the preceding decade and a half.

The BoE announced that the stockpile would be reduced to a total of 658 billion pounds over the next 12 months through a mix of sales and allowing bonds to expire, faster than the 80 billion pounds drop over the previous year, which was largely expected by investors.