Experts predict interest rate hold

The UK’s base interest rate will be held at 0.5 per cent when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets to debate the number this week.

At least this is according to a panel of three experts, who stated that they expect the MPC to vote for no change for the third month in a row on Thursday.

“The attention is on quantitative easing now so interest rates are going to stay unchanged,” commented Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics.

“I think [the decision to increase the rate] probably won’t be for at least another year or maybe even 18 months,” she added.

Michael Baxter of Defaqto and Arek Ohanissian of the Centre for Economics and Business Research agreed that there will be no change this week, with the latter predicting that the rate will stay at 0.5 per cent until several months into 2010.

The base rate is a contributing factor to how much interest is charged on debt consolidation loans.

By Chris Trimble