The Bank of England kept the size of its stimulus programme unchanged and left its benchmark interest rate at an all-time low of 0.1% on Thursday.

Economists taking part in a Reuters poll had expected no policy changes by the BoE as it waits to see if a post-lockdown jump in inflation proves transitory and whether unemployment rises when the government scales back its job-protection scheme.

The BoE said its Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 to keep its government bond-buying programme at 875 billion pounds ($1.22 trillion). The MPC voted 9-0 to keep Bank Rate unchanged and to leave its 20 billion pound stock of corporate bond purchases unchanged.

Last week, the U.S. Federal Reserve began to move towards reducing its pandemic stimulus by signalling its first rate hike in 2023, a year earlier than previous projections, putting the focus on what other central banks might do next.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by David Milliken and Andy Bruce; editing by Michael Holden)