With the September Monetary Policy Committee meeting having been held last week the Bank of England has announced that there is to be no change in the current base interest rate, which will remain at its record low of just 0.5 percent for yet another month.

This marks the sixth month in a row that the base rate has been left on hold, and will come as a relief to many struggling homeowners and industry groups who have been hoping that the base rate will stay at this record low level for as long as possible.

Many industry experts had already predicted that the base rate would remain on hold for this month, and some have gone as far as to say that it is likely that the rate will stay at this record low for the remainder of this year and into next year as the economy makes efforts to recover.

One economist said that if the economy continued to show signs of recovery interest rates hikes could start to come into play in the early part of next year, stating: ‘If the economic data continues to improve, we could see the first interest rate hike in the first quarter of next year.’

Following the latest MPC meeting the Bank of England also announced that there was to be no further extension on the quantitative easing program, with the government having already exceeded the £150 billion limit by ploughing £175 billion into the economy through this process so far.

Last month there was a surprise £50 billion extra announced following the MPC meeting, with rumours that the governor of the central bank had been calling for even more than this amount.

One official said that the central bank may look at the quantitative easing scheme again later in the year, stating: ‘Having extended the programme only last month it would have been very surprising if they’d felt the need to extend again this month. I expect they’re on hold until November. Our guess is that they may extend again in November.’

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