Investing.com - The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in September and announced no change to its asset purchase facility program, it said on Thursday.
The BOE said it was holding the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, in a widely expected move. The rate has been held at that level since March 2009.
The central bank also said it was to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
Most market players expect the BOE to begin slowly raising interest rates in mid-2016.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.5422 from around 1.5386 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7258 from 0.7273 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were lower. London’s FTSE 100 shed 0.8%, the EURO STOXX 50 slumped 0.85%, France's CAC 40 declined 0.7%, while Germany's DAX lost 0.45%.