Interest rate message from BOE Governor Bailey

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said he hopes interest rates in the U.K. are now near their peak and that the pace of rate hikes could end as inflation weakens. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the most aggressive interest rate hikes in four decades could end as inflation weakens. “We are getting to a point where we need to kind of rest on interest rates. But we haven’t seen the evidence yet that would make a stronger case for stopping interest rates, so I am very clear that we need to be evidence-driven,” Bailey said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday. It follows the U.K. central bank’s 12th consecutive rate hike and suggested officials could take a break at their next meeting on June 22 if inflation starts to fall as sharply as the central bank predicts. Asked if the BoE was close to taking a break, he said: “I would say I hope so because this is the 12th consecutive rate hike. We are getting close to a point where we can start to take a break in terms of the level of interest. But I would still be very open to the fact that we will act on the evidence that comes to us.”