Megan Greene News

Megan Greene (pictured), said that inflation is above target in both countries, however, the issue is of ‘greater concern’ in the UK.

But the decision was not unanimous, as the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee were split. Seven voted to hold rates and two opted to cut by 0.25 percentage points to 5%. Governor Andrew Bailey, Sarah Breeden, Ben Broadbent, Megan Greene, Jonathan Haskel, Catherine Mann and Huw Pill all voted in favour of the proposition. The two diverging members were Swati Dhingra and Dave Ramsden. The decision comes as inflation remained above the Bank's 2% target at 3.2%. How is potential central bank monetary policy divergence affecting asset allocation? Bailey had previously sign...

Megan Greene (pictured) was part of a minority group of three members who voted to increase interest rates to 5.5% during the recent MPC meeting.

James Baxter-Derrington (pictured), editor

Stephen Cohen (pictured), head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at BlackRock

By William Schomberg, Andy Bruce and Suban Abdulla

Bank of England halted its long run of interest rate increases on Thursday as the British economy slowed, but it said it was not taking a recent fall in inflation for granted. A day after a surprise slowing in Britain's fast pace of price growth, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted by a narrow margin of 5-4 to keep Bank Rate at 5.25%. Four members — Jon Cunliffe, Megan Greene, Jonathan Haskel and Catherine Mann — voted to raise rates to 5.5%. It was the first time since December 2021 that the BoE did not increase borrowing costs. «There are increasing signs of some impact of tighter monetary policy on the labour market and on momentum in the real economy more generally,» the MPC said in a statement. It cut its forecast for economic growth in the July-September period to just 0.1% from August's forecast of 0.4% and noted clear signs of weakness in the housing market. Growth for the rest of the year was likely to be weaker than previous forecasts, the BoE said. Record growth in workers' pay, which has been a big concern for the central bank, was not backed up by other measures of the labour market, it noted, suggesting the BoE's policymakers expected it to slow down soon. «CPI inflation is expected to fall significantly further in the near term, reflecting lower annual energy inflation, despite the renewed upward pressure from oil prices,» the BoE said. But it said services inflation was expected to remain elevated. The BoE's decision to pause its rate hikes came a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve also opted to keep borrowing costs on hold.

Bank of England halted its long run of 14 straight interest rate hikes on Thursday as the British economy slowed, but it said it was not taking a recent fall in inflation for granted. A day after a surprise slowing in Britain's fast pace of price growth, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted by a narrow margin of 5-4 to keep Bank Rate at 5.25%. Four members — Jon Cunliffe, Megan Greene, Jonathan Haskel and Catherine Mann — voted to raise rates to 5.5%. It was the first time since December 2021 that the BoE did not increase borrowing costs. «There are increasing signs of some impact of tighter monetary policy on the labour market and on momentum in the real economy more generally,» the MPC said in a statement. It cut its forecast for economic growth in the July-September period to just 0.1% from August's forecast of 0.4% and noted clear signs of weakness in the housing market. Growth for the rest of the year was likely to be weaker than previous forecasts, the BoE said. Record growth in workers' pay, which has been a big concern for the central bank, was not backed up by other measures of the labour market, it noted, suggesting the BoE's policymakers expected it to slow down soon. «CPI inflation is expected to fall significantly further in the near term, reflecting lower annual energy inflation, despite the renewed upward pressure from oil prices,» the BoE said. But it said services inflation was expected to remain elevated. The BoE's decision to pause its rate hikes came a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve also opted to keep borrowing costs on hold.