The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) told brokers this morning there is total uncertainty about the direction of interest rates, with no timescale for the previously projected incremental rises to 3%.
Speaking at the Financial Services Expo in Cardiff, Robert Sinclair, chief executive of AMI, said the Bank of England and its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has a significant job on its hands over the next few months in terms of how it reacts to the post-Brexit fallout.
Sinclair said: “The big question is, what next for the Bank of England and the MPC? It is really caught on the horns of two issues – whether it protects the value of sterling or it controls inflation.”
Sinclair said that the way the MPC prioritises those two problems will dictate what it chooses to do with the Bank Base Rate (BBR).
“How far can you cut the BBR?” he asked. “Can you go to negative BBR? These are questions that are being discussed now. The MPC will have to make decisions in July, August and September about continued quantitative easing and the direction of BBR. Normally it wouldn’t want to make decisions within those months at all.”
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
