Today both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank have held their key lending rates, with the BOE maintaining at 0.5%. The BOE have also put on hold their money-printing quantitative easing programme.

It was not exactly a shock, in a time of slow and dubious economic recovery. The British Pound was trading against the US dollar recently at $1.5108, a rise of 1% on the day. The Euro fell against the US dollar down to, $1.3676, a drop of 0.1%.

Mervyn King, the BOE governor and other members of the Monetary Policy Committee have recently maintained that they are concerned about the speed of economic recovery in Britain and not yet worried about recent rises in inflation which appeared to be temporary and attributed to the cessation of the temporary government cuts in VAT.

The head of BOE recently cautioned that the revival in the euro zone appeared to be at a standstill. Mervyn King stressed in front of a parliamentary committee that risks to the committee’s central forecast remained firmly on the downside. For full details on this story go to marketwatch.com.