BANK of England (BOE) governor Andrew Bailey said expectations of interest rate cuts this year were not “unreasonable” and he struck an optimistic tone about the UK economy, the Financial Times reported on Friday (Mar 22).

“The fact that we have a curve that has cuts in it for the year as a whole is not unreasonable to me,” Bailey told the FT in an interview, adding he was encouraged by recent signs that inflation in Britain was on the wane.

“All our meetings are in play. We take a fresh decision every time,” he told the FT when asked if all the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meetings were live when it comes to possible rate cuts.

The BOE on Thursday kept its benchmark Bank Rate on hold at a 16-year high of 5.25 per cent but two MPC members dropped their calls for a rate hike in the face of easing inflation and Bailey said “things are moving in the right direction”.

In his interview with the FT, Bailey said “we are not seeing a lot of sticky persistence” in inflation and “that is the judgment we have to keep coming back to”. REUTERS