The Ryan Review

THE most important banking news this month is no news at all. Both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England left their key interest rates unchanged. Both organisations have one job: to keep inflation at 2pc. Both have failed pretty miserably at it. The British have been flip-flopping above and below the target while the ECB probably can’t remember the last time it met it. Monetary policy is a powerful tool. It controls supply and demand in an economy and the UK’s governor Mark Carney startled markets when he said the BoEs response to a hard Brexit would not necessarily result in a drop in interest rates — they’re currently at 0.75pc. He needs to weigh up the impact first, he says, but that’s a little like knowing there’s an almighty tornado coming and pondering if your washing will get blown off the line before you decide to take it in. Over at the ECB, Mario Draghi is eyeing Ireland as a fiscal outlier — so what’s new? Our storming growth and buoyant economy is at odds with Italy, Spain and other big players. So the promise of an interest rate hike for mortgage holders here (already paying the highest in the EU), looks some way off. We’ll take what good news we can get.