UK rate unchanged

Bloomberg

The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Mervyn King, kept the main rate at 0.5 percent, the lowest since the bank was founded in 1694, as predicted by 60 of 62 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The panel also agreed to continue the three-month program to purchase 75 billion pounds ($110 billion) of assets to bolster the economy, the bank said.

"The Committee noted that since its previous meeting a total of just over 26 billion pounds of asset purchases had been made and that it would take a further two months to complete that program," the Bank of England said.

The U.K. economy is shrinking at the fastest pace since 1980, threatening to push inflation below the Bank of England’s 2 percent target and eventually stoke deflation. While Chief Economist Spencer Dale says growth may return at the end of the year, investors have called on King to keep up the pace of bond purchases to push down bond yields and ease credit markets.

The U.S. Federal Reserve kept its benchmark at a range of zero to 0.25 percent on March 18. The European Central Bank last week cut its rate a quarter-point to 1.25 percent.