Bank of England (BoE) governor Mark Carney has claimed the central bank will not pursue negative interest rates, a monetary policy method previously adopted by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan.
Speaking to Central Banking magazine earlier this month, in an interview published yesterday, Carney said: “At this stage, we do not see negative rates as an option here. I am not criticising others that have used them, but we don’t see it as an option.”
Negative interest rates look to encourage banks to spend their excess cash by penalising them for opting to keep it in their country’s central bank, although Carney claimed this practice can be “counter-productive”.
The UK’s central bank has chosen to maintain its base rate – which determines the cost of lending to the economy – at 0.75 per cent, highlighting that low unemployment rats and inflation close to its target of 2 per cent.
In the interview, Carney added that the BoE’s view “is that the effective lower bound is close to zero, but positive – just above zero.”
Furthermore, the governor also expressed that he thought changing the bank’s inflation target of 2 per cent would be a bad idea.
During the interview, Carney also urged France and Germany to take action to ensure that uncleared derivate contracts can function smoothly post-Brexit.
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Figures from the National House-Building Council saw Q1 2025 register a 36% increase in new homes built across the UK compared with the same period last year, representing a striking development for the first-time buyer market. But with the higher cost of building, ongoing planning challenges and new and changing regulations, how sustainable is this growth? And what does it mean for brokers?
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In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance, to explore how regional trends are redefining the UK housing, mortgage and buy-to-let markets.
In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance, to explore how regional trends are redefining the UK housing, mortgage and buy-to-let markets.
The new episode of The Mortgage Insider podcast, out now
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In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance.
In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance.
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