European central banks intensified their efforts to combat the recession on Thursday with bolder decisions than expected to boost lending. The Bank of England held its rate to 0.5% but said it would pump £50bn into the UK economy through increased government bond purchases, while the ECB cut its main interest rate by 25bp to 1%, the lowest yet, and announced plans to buy €60bn (£54bn) of covered bonds.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 5:11 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with bank of england, ecb. Edit this entry.