BoE's Bailey says MPC did not signal rates were set to go negative

(Sharecast News) - Rate-setters in the Bank of England are not near cutting interest rates into negative territory nor signalling such a move.

In a webinar, Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, said remarks in the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee's last meeting had been exaggerated.

What policymakers at the central bank were indeed doing was studying how to implement them should they ever be needed and making sure that they could in fact do so.

A point in case was making sure that IT systems could handle negative interest rates.

Other considerations included the structure of the UK's banking industry or the point in the economic cycle at which we were at.

Bailey also indicated that the economy remained 7-10% beneath its pre-pandemic levels and that the "hard yards" had yet to be run.

The Governor also saod that the Monetary Policy Committee would "need a lot of confidence in a world of uncertainty and change that the economy really is heading back on track."