BoE cuts rates by 25 bps to 5.5%

The Bank of England cut interest rates for the first time in more than two years on Thursday, after a week of feverish speculation over whether it would act to shore up economic growth in the face of the global credit crunch. The Bank said it had cut its key rate by a quarter percentage point to 5.5 per cent. The European Central Bank left interest rates at 4.0 per cent on Thursday, as expected, resisting a growing global bias towards monetary policy easing.