QE lifts reserves at Threadneedle Street
THE HUGE expansion of bank deposits at the Bank of England continued in September, data revealed yesterday.
The Bank received an extra £10.6bn deposits last month, bringing their total deposits to £262.3bn – with this month’s 4.2 per cent jump capping off a gigantic 110.3 per cent yearly climb.
Driving this movement is the quantitative easing asset purchase programme – the Bank finances its gilt buying by creating reserves.
Meanwhile, the value of notes and coins in circulation continued to grow steadily, edging up 0.3 per cent last month, putting the annual growth at five per cent.
This was a very slight reduction in the pace of narrow money growth – August saw a 0.4 per cent monthly increase, leading to 5.1 per cent annual expansion.
And a third dataset, also released by the Bank yesterday, showed that households wiped a slightly higher amount off their mortgages in the second quarter of the year, than in the first.
The Bank reported net housing equity injection of £9.8bn in the three months to June, up from £9.6bn in the first quarter.
This was the 17th consecutive quarter of net injection of housing equity as Britons put their cash into their bricks and mortar.
Lending secured on dwellings continued to slowly rise, creeping up 0.1 per cent – £1.3bn – between the first and second quarters, as part of a 0.8 per cent yearly rise.