REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo
Bank of England's Governor Mark Carney gestures during the "Debate on the Global Economy" session during the 2015 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, October 8, 2015.
The BoE has been on hold as far as interest rates are concerned since March 2009, when the monetary policy committee cut Bank Rate to 0.5%.
Once again, a single member of the nine-person MPC voted for a 0.25 percentage point rate hike, and eight voted to keep the rate where it is for now.
While MPC Member Ian McCafferty voted for a 0.25% rise, the BoE cited deflationary risks from the falling oil price in its justification for keeping rates at near-zero levels.
Here's the key quote from the BoE:
Twelve-month CPI inflation rose to 0.1% in November and is likely to rise modestly further in the coming months as some of the large falls in energy and food prices a year earlier drop out of the annual comparison. But the 40% decline in dollar oil prices means that the increase in inflation is now expected to be slightly more gradual in the near term than forecast in the Committee's November Inflation Report projections.
The news didn't move the pound much against the dollar:
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