The June meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) saw the central bank announce a 50bps rate increase. This followed two 25bps hikes at its March and May meetings. Prior to this, the BoE had implemented 50bps increases in both February and December. In the lead up to today’s announcement, there had been growing speculation that the BoE would hike by 50bps, rather than by 25bps as previously anticipated. This was in the aftermath of Wednesday’s higher than expected inflation numbers for May. Today’s rate hike brings the Bank rate up to 5.00% and marks the thirteenth consecutive meeting where the BoE has raised rates. The Bank has now raised rates by a total of 490bps since it commenced hiking in December of 2021.