{"id":551548,"date":"2026-07-30T16:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551548\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:29:22","slug":"bank-of-england-holds-interest-rates-but-says-it-is-ready-to-raise-them-if-iran-war-escalates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551548\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank of England holds interest rates but says it is ready to raise them if Iran war escalates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three out of nine members vote to increase rate to 4%published at 12:09 BST<\/p>\n<p>12:09 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\">Dearbail Jordan<br \/>At the Bank of England<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Bank of England examined a range of scenarios of what might happen to inflation and the economy depending on the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Inflation was previously expected to reach 3.5% this year. In a worst-case scenario, where oil prices reach $100 a barrel, the Bank now projects that inflation could reach 3.2% in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a scenario where oil prices are around $76 before falling back to $71, inflation could reach 3%. While better than previously forecast, that remains above the Bank of England\u2019s 2% target.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The UK economy is expected to grow by 1.1% this year, ahead of forecasts in April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the Bank\u2019s rate-setting committee voted to hold borrowing costs, three of its nine members wanted to increase the rate to 4%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Megan Greene, one of the three who voted for a rise, said that while there was uncertainty because of the Iran war, other &#8220;risks loom&#8221; over inflation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">These include a second choke point for global energy supplies in the Red Sea \u2013 Houthi rebels in Yemen recently attacked oil tankers passing through the region. She also warned about El Ni\u00f1o and a slowdown in AI-related hardware should supply constraints continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three out of nine members vote to increase rate to 4%published at 12:09 BST 12:09 BST Dearbail JordanAt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-551548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}