Bank of England has raised interest rates to its highest since March 2008 which is ‘pretty abysmal’

The Bank of England has raised interest rates for the 14^th consecutive time from 5% to 5.25% in an attempt to make borrowing more expensive.

The Bank of England is also trying to dampen the economic activity to take money out of the economy to bring inflation down to 2%, which currently stands at 7.9%.

Economists are expecting interest rates to hit 5.75% by the end of the year and some have said they expect the base rate to hit more than 6% by January.

Bank Governor Andrew Bailey said, “Inflation is falling and that’s good news.

“We know that inflation hits the least well off the hardest and we need to make absolutely sure that it falls all the way back to the 2% target.

“That’s why we’ve raised rates to 5.25% today.”

CEO of Octane Capital, Jonathan Samuels said, “Whilst an unpopular opinion, it could be argued that the Bank of England hasn’t been daring enough in their decision to increase rates again today and really another 0.5% increase was needed in order to tame inflation.

“It’s far better to have a short period of pain brought about by higher interest rates, rather than a sustained period of significant economic turmoil and uncertainty.

“Take America, for example, where rates started to rise at a similar time to the UK, but in a far more aggressive manner. Inflation there is already back to 3% and so the target of 2% is within reach. If we had been as bold, then we too would be close to achieving the much heralded ‘soft landing’ and would be far closer to interest rates falling than we are now.”

CEO of RIFT Tax Refunds, Bradley Post, added, “The Bank of England’s ‘aggressive’ approach to managing inflation via interest rates has, to date, been pretty abysmal.

“It’s fair to say that they haven’t acted swiftly enough, or with the required level of intent to actually curb inflation, which remains extremely high.

“At the same time, fourteenth consecutive base rate hikes have had a serious impact on the average household, who are now not only dealing with a sustained increase in the cost of living, but are also paying the price when borrowing to make ends meet.”