BoE slows rate it sells off bonds

BANK of England has said it will reduce the speed at which it offloads government debt, weeks after a global selloff triggered turmoil in the financial markets.

- SION BARRY

The Bank’s announcement came alongside its decision to keep UK interest rates at 4%.

The central bank has been selling off its stock of government bonds to a target of £100bn-a-year for the past few years. But it said that it was reducing the size of that target to £70bn in the year ahead.

The Bank of England bought hundreds of billions of pounds worth of bonds following the 2008 financial crisis in a bid to boost the economy.

Three years ago, it started to sell off those bonds, which are costly to hold, through a process known as quantitative tightening (QT).