The Bank of England (BoE), the central bank of Britain, Thursday voted to maintain Bank Rate, the benchmark interest rate, at 0.5 percent.
The bank also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets, or quantitative easing policy scheme, at 375 billion pounds (or 600 billion U.S. dollars).
It is the 68th successive months that interest rates stay at the historic low level. The decision is within the market's expectation.
The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5 percent on 5 March 2009. A program of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The previous change in the size of that program was an increase of 50 billion pounds to the current level on 5 July 2012, noted the bank.
During the monetary policy meeting last month, however, two out of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of BoE voted to raise the interest rate, and it was the third month of decision split among the MPC. (1 pound = 1.60 dollars)