Bank poised to pump more money into economy
The Bank of England stands ready to pump more money into the faltering economy, minutes to the BoE’s September meeting showed, flagging the chance of more asset purchases as soon as October.
At the meeting, Adam Posen remained the only one to vote for an additional 50 billion pound in asset purchases.
But the minutes showed that most members of the Monetary Policy Committee thought it was increasingly likely that more asset purchases would become warranted at some point.
“For most members, the decision of whether to embark on further monetary easing at this meeting was finely balanced since the weakness and stresses of the past month had significantly strengthened the case for an immediate resumption of asset purchases,” the minutes said.
“For some members, a continuation of the conditions seen over the past month would probably be sufficient to justify an expansion of the asset purchase programme at a subsequent meeting.”
The minutes said that those voting for an unchanged policy in September had seen some merit in waiting to see how actions taken by overseas authorities would develop.
Since the September meeting, a slew of bad news from the economy, the ongoing euro zone debt crisis and rising tensions in financial markets have stoked fears that Britain could slip into recession again.