Doubt over timing of expected Bank of England interest rate rise

The Bank of England is still expected to raise its benchmark interest rate from a record low of 0.5% early next year, but economists in the latest Reuters poll are now less certain about the timing.

As in all surveys since March, the median in yesterday’s poll of 50 economists said the initial rise of 25 basis points would come in the first three months of 2016, followed by similar moves in the third and fourth quarters.

But financial markets are not fully pricing in the first rate increase until the second quarter of 2016 and over half of the economists polled said their conviction about the timing had decreased over the past month.