BoE's Haldane: Policy toolkit discussion in spirit of contingency planning

"The discussion of the Bank of England's (BoE) policy toolkit is very much in the spirit of contingency planning," Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist of the BoE, said on Friday, as reported by Reuters.

Additional takeaways

"It's clear that trading volumes are down due to Brexit, some disruptions are taking place, it's hard to know the duration and the scale."

"The BoE is giving absolutely no signal on the near-term direction of its policy."

"Expecting 4.5 million people to be furloughed in the current lockdown."

Market reaction

The GBP/USD pair trades with modest daily gains a little below 1.3700 following these remarks.