BoE says to keep up 75 bln stg asset purchase plan

The Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at a record low of 0.5 percent on Thursday, as expected, and said it would continue with its 75 billion pound ($110.5 billion) asset purchase scheme to boost the economy.

"The Committee also voted to continue with the programme, announced on 5 March, of asset purchases totalling 75 billion pounds financed by the issuance of central bank reserves," the BoE said.

"The Committee noted that since its previous meeting a total of just over 26 billion pounds of asset purchases had been made and that it would take a further two months to complete that programme," the BoE added.

This was the first month that the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee kept interest rates on hold since September, having cut them by a total of 4.5 percentage points to tackle Britain's first economic recession since the early 1990s.

It signalled last month that borrowing costs would not go any lower but it would now resort to pumping money directly into the economy — so-called quantitative easing — to boost demand.