Investing.com - Minutes from the Bank of England's most recent policy meeting released Thursday showed that the Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 to keep rates on hold.
The minutes show eight members were in favor of leaving the key interest rate at a record low of 0.5%, in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous meeting.
Dissenting member Ian McCafferty voted for a 0.25% hike in the benchmark rate to 0.75% for the third consecutive month.
All nine members were in favor of making no changes to the central bank's £375 billion asset-purchase program.
According to the minutes, the majority of policymakers said underlying price pressures “were not strong enough to justify” tightening. The BOE also said the strong pound will continue to push down on inflation and this effect will only slowly diminish.
Most market players expect the BOE to begin slowly raising interest rates in mid-2016.
GBP/USD was trading at 1.5308 from around 1.5389 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7105 from 0.7065 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were mixed. London’s FTSE 100 shed 0.55%, the EURO STOXX 50 tacked on 0.85%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.9%, while Germany's DAX advanced 0.8%.