The Bank of England (BoE) announced on Thursday, September 17, that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had voted unanimously to leave its benchmark bank rate at 0.1 percent whilst also maintaining the target for the total stock of asset purchases under its quantitative-easing (QE) programme at £745 billion.
During its policy meeting on Thursday, September 10, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to keep its main refinancing benchmark rate unchanged at 0 percent, along with leaving its rates on the marginal lending facility and deposit facility the same at 0.25 percent and -0.50 percent, respectively.
At its most recent monetary-policy meeting in late July, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) discussed implementing a number of monetary-policy tools to allay concerns regarding the economic outlook for the United States. And while the FOMC had already taken numerous emergency measures
The warning not to put all your eggs in one basket may apply to policymakers’ exclusive focus on boosting the demand side of economies. Monetary policies, in particular, are fixated on promoting growth in demand. But is the supply side of the equation being ignored in the process? Is this one-sided approach most likely to prosper the economies that are subjected to it, or is a change of focus needed?
Taking on the mantle of governorship of a central bank is challenging, but for Andrew Bailey, the new governor of the Bank of England, the role couldn’t be more formidable. With the United Kingdom’s long-awaited divorce from the European Union around the corner, the country’s financial system will need all the help it can get to survive the inevitable turbulence. Bailey’s new job won’t be a walk in the park!
In mid-June, Cambria Africa announced that its Zimbabwe-based subsidiary—the payment-services provider Payserv—had suspended its service to its bank customers in Zimbabwe. According to Cambria, the suspension was due to a “collective refusal to pay historical and contracted pricing to Payserv Africa in US dollars
The United States will soon break a record: the longest period of economic expansion, last set in the 1990s. But some don’t see this growth continuing much longer; they expect a recession, or even a depression, to extinguish the growth trajectory the world’s largest economy has been following for nearly a decade. Are these fears justified? Or are there as many reasons to expect the economy to continue to soar, shattering all records?
At the end of August, leading ratings agency Moody’s downgraded 18 banks and two finance companies in Turkey. According to the agency, the downgrades “primarily reflect a substantial increase in the risk of a downside scenario, where a further negative shift in investor sentiment could lead to a curtailing of wholesale funding”.
The good news is that economic growth globally is strong, with a few exceptions, as the world shakes off the effects of the Great Recession. But economists are uneasy about troubling undercurrents, such as protectionist trade policies, that could whip up into a global trade war. Most are hoping that trade relationships can be repaired, acknowledging that the time is now to rebuild rather than burn bridges.
With economic growth returning to the developed world, the end of years of quantitative easing and easy monetary policy is in view; inflation concerns are reviving, guaranteeing rising interest rates along with tightening liquidity. Emerging markets in Latin America are benefiting from higher commodity prices, and despite some political tensions are proving to be an increasingly attractive destination for investor funds.