Bank maintains base rate

The Bank of England has opted to maintain the base rate of interest at 5.25 per cent, it has been announced.

Having decided to cut the cost of borrowing last month, experts were almost universally convinced that the bank’s monetary policy committee would hold fire and so this has proved to be the case.

A cut in the base rate might have afforded some breathing room to the millions of Britons who have a hefty debt management burden to worry about, but this relief will now only come in April at the earliest.

In response to the announcement, the mortgage broker John Charcol has advised homeowners to plan carefully before taking on a new home loan deal in light of fluctuations in the market of late.

“As lenders change rates increasingly quickly, with most new rates higher than the ones they replace, borrowers who want to remortgage should start to investigate their options as much as six or seven months before their current deal ends,” said John Charcol’s senior technical manager Ray Boulger.

The Bank of England opted to increase the base rate of interest on five occasions between August 2006 and July of last year.