The move to maintain the 0.5% was widely expected by the markets, however, there had been some speculation that they could be cut to 0% to dissuade banks from hoarding cash in the BoE's central reserves.

Quantitative easing will continue to pump up to £175bn in the economy, but won't  be extended further, the BoE said.

The process of quantitative easing, where the bank creates additional funds electronically to buy up assets, has been widely welcomed as boosting the economy, repairing the banks' balance sheets.

However, a significant proportion of the money is being held by banks in the BoE, rather than being lent to consumers and businesses, which may harm the longer-term recovery.

It is now the seventh month that the interest rate has been at 0.5%.