Mark Carney appointed as governor of the Bank of England

Mark Carney has been unveiled as the surprise choice to lead the Bank of England, chancellor George Osborne announced today.

He will quit his current job as Bank of Canada governor to take charge at Threadneedle Street when Sir Mervyn King steps down on 1 July 2013.

The decision to appoint an outsider from overseas was unexpected but Osborne insisted that Carney is “acknowledged as the outstanding central banker of his generation”.

Carney, 47, is a former Goldman Sachs banker who was educated at Harvard and Oxford. He beat stiff competition from the likes of deputy governor Paul Tucker.