The Bank of England has raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points to 3 per cent in its most forceful act to tame inflation for 30 years but signalled that borrowing costs would not rise in the future by as much as markets expect.
The pound fell 2 per cent against the dollar, which had been buoyed by a contrasting message from the Federal Reserve that US interest rates would increase by more than Wall Street anticipates.
Warning that the outlook was “very challenging” and forecasting a long recession ahead, the UK central bank issued unusually strong guidance that interest rates would not need to rise much further to bring inflation back to its 2 per cent target.