Investing.com - The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in May and announced no change to its asset purchase facility program, it said on Monday.
The BoE said it was holding the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, in a widely expected move. 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.
The minutes of the meeting of the central bank’s monetary policy committee will be published on Wednesday, May 20.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.5481 from around 1.5485 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7205 from 0.7204 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were mostly lower. London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2%, the EURO STOXX 50 dropped 1.1%, France's CAC 40 lost 1.5%, while Germany's DAX slumped 0.5%.