BoE's Bailey: Some further increase in bank rate may turn out to be appropriate

Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey said on Wednesday that some further increase in bank rate may turn out to be appropriate but added that nothing is decided, as reported by Reuters.

Key takeaways

"I would caution against suggesting either that we are done with increasing bank rate, or that we will inevitably need to do more."

"We will reach our conclusions with a determined focus on achieving the 2% inflation target on a sustained and lasting basis."

"Economy is evolving much as we expected it to."

"Inflation has been slightly weaker, and activity and wages slightly stronger, though I would emphasize ‘slightly’ in both cases."

"We have to monitor carefully how the tightening we have already done is working its way through the economy."

"If we do too little with interest rates now, we will only have to do more later on."

"We must ensure that the situation does not get worse through homemade inflation taking hold."

"UK labour market remains very tight."

Market reaction

GBP/USD's reaction to these comments were muted and the pair was last seen trading at 1.2060, where it was up 0.35% on a daily basis.