Investing.com - The pound was steady at three-week lows against the dollar on Thursday after the Bank of England kept monetary policy on hold, in a widely anticipated decision.
GBP/USD was last down 0.12% at 1.5245, from around 1.5358 ahead of the announcement.
The BoE left interest rates unchanged at their current record low of 0.50%, where they have been since March 2009. The central bank also maintained the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
The minutes of the meeting of the central bank’s monetary policy committee will be published on Wednesday, February 18.
The dollar remained broadly stronger, with the dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies at 11-year peaks of 96.23, boosted by weakness in the euro.
The euro fell to fresh 11-year lows against the dollar earlier Thursday ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later in the day, where it was expected to outline the details of the bond purchasing stimulus program it announced in January.
EUR/USD hit lows of 1.1026 and was last at 1.1048, down 0.27% for the day.
ECB President Mario Draghi was expected to shed more light on how the bank will implement its large scale quantitative easing program which is due to start this month, following the bank’s policy meeting.
Sterling was at seven-year peaks against the broadly weaker euro, with EUR/GBP at 0.7250.