The Bank of England has kept its Bank Rate at 0.5%, it announced today.

The bank's economic stimulus programme, Quantitative Easing, was kept the same at £375bn.
The Bank of England base rate has stayed the same since March 2009 although recently Governor Mark Carney and other senior bank figures have hinted that a small rise in the near future could be possible as the economy continues to recover. Some experts have forecast that the bank base rate could eventually rise to more historic norms, perhaps in the range of 2.5% to 5%.
With UK GDP growth accelerating and unemployment falling the Bank is keeping a close eye on the economy and inflationary pressures but so far inflation has been kept under control with the rate falling to 1.5% in May and no expectations of a rapid general rise although house price inflation has recently soared.

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Today's announcement means that the base rate has been unchanged for nearly 5.5 years.
Governor Mark Carney has said previously that the base rate will not be reviewed or increased until unemployment fell to 7%. However, recently the Bank has said that the Base Rate would only be reviewed when this happened and a Base Rate change was not a foregone conclusion.
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