March 16, 2020
By Andy Bruce and Elizabeth Howcroft
LONDON (Reuters) – New Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey promised on Monday that more “prompt action” would come from the central bank when needed to help Britain’s economy weather the hit from the coronavirus outbreak.
Bailey, who succeeded Mark Carney as governor earlier on Monday, told BBC News in his first public appearance that the BoE was “very keen” to ensure short-term damage to the economy did not permanently impair Britain’s longer-term growth prospects.
“That’s why you saw prompt action last week, that’s why you will see prompt action again when we need to take it, and the public can be assured of that,” he said.
On Wednesday the BoE launched emergency credit measures to prevent a wave of corporate bankruptcies, and cut interest rates to 0.25% from 0.75%.
Bailey said the move on Sunday by six central banks, including the BoE, to provide cheap U.S. dollar funds to the financial system came in response to some “pretty big dislocations” in financial markets.
“We’re going to see how that works its way through the markets today (and) in the coming days to see what the effect is, but I would emphasize that this is strong coordination among central banks.”
(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)