The Bank of England allotted 37.059 billion pounds ($49.52 billion) in seven-day funds in its weekly short-term repo on Thursday, down from last week’s record 44.523 billion pounds.
Repos, or repurchase agreements, allow banks to temporarily exchange government bonds they own for central bank cash, helping to keep market interest rates in line with the BoE’s policy rate.
Thursday’s result is the first fall in weekly repo usage since Aug. 29. Usage of the repo facility has been hitting fresh records in most weeks since April, as the BoE’s unwinding of quantitative easing drains liquidity from the financial system.
($1 = 0.7484 pounds)
(Reporting by David Milliken)
