Bank of England holds off on fresh stimulus, sees worst slump in 300 years

The Bank of England (BoE) held off further stimulus measures but said it was ready to take fresh action to counter the coronavirus hammering which could cause the country's biggest economic slump in over 300 years in 2020 before a bounce-back in 2021.

The BoE said its Monetary Policy Committee kept Bank Rate at its all-time low of 0.1 percent and left its target for bond-buying, most of it British government debt, at 645 billion pounds (797 billion U.S. dollars).

However, two of its nine policymakers - Michael Saunders and Jonathan Haskel - voted for 100 billion pounds' worth of more bond-buying firepower.

In what it called an illustrative scenario, the BoE said it saw a plunge of 14 percent in Britain's economy in 2020 followed by 15 percent bounce-back in 2021.

Such a scenario would require very significant monetary and fiscal stimulus, it said.

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