Asset purchases put on hold as Bank of England can’t find its bonds
A hardware failure at the Bank of England means a delay to critical announcements about asset purchases.
Some piece of kit has been fried, and while essential systems such as payments have switched to a backup – non-essential services such as internal documents and record keeping won't be accessible for a few hours.
This is such a trouble because when bonds mature they'll make an announcement on Thursdays at 4pm.
They'll say which quantitative easing bonds have matured, and subsequently what they'll be purchasing next week. The purchases aren't postponed – but the announcement of them is.
Now that process will have to be delayed, with an announcement due at 11am tomorrow.
Here's their statement:
The Bank has been experiencing some technical IT problems today. There is no impact on critical payment and settlement services. Alternative procedures are in place where necessary. The Bank is acting to resolve these problems as soon as possible.