The Bank of England is the UK's central bank.
Will their base rate (also known as the official bank rate) be set at or above 6% at any point during 2023 or 2024?
The Bank of England is scheduled to set rates at the following meetings during 2023 (with more meetings to come in 2024):
2nd February - rate raised from 3.5% to 4%
23rd March - rate raised from 4% to 4.25%
11th May - rate raised from 4.25% to 4.5%
22nd June - rate raised from 4.5% to 5%
3rd August - rate raised from 5% to 5.25%
21st September - rate held at 5.25%
2nd November - rate held at 5.25%
14th December - rate held at 5.25%
The bank may also call an emergency meeting or change rates between meetings, though they try very hard to avoid doing this to ensure confidence and stability!
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@Noit Just in case there's any ambiguity, the description says "Will their base rate (also known as the official bank rate) be set at or above 6% at any point during 2023 or 2024?"
@Noit Nobody knows this, but the dictionary definition of "by" is "on, in, or before", so includes 2024 in this case.
Of course most people use it to mean "before", and we usually interpret markets here best we can tell how they were intended, so markets usually resolve on it meaning "before".
(but yes, as mentioned in the description and reiterated by @SimonGrayson just now, the dictionary definition is being used)
FYI, @SimonGrayson, the title says 6%, but the description says 5%. I am assuming the former is meant, since the latter has already been reached.
@chrisjbillington You're right!
That's fixed now. Hopefully no one was betting under false pretences!
