FCA, Bank of England, banking, payments and the UK capital markets.
On 2 September the Bank's repo lending stood at £208.7 billion against £643.7 billion of reserves. A year of quantitative tightening has removed gilts without shrinking the reserves it was meant to drain.
Net mortgage approvals climbed to 58,200 in June and house prices are still edging up, but with the MPC holding Bank Rate at 3.75% on a 6-3 vote and three members pushing for 4%, Britain's mortgage market is running into a rate path that offers borrowers no near-term relief.
Consumer prices rose 2.9 per cent in the year to July, up from 2.6 per cent in June, as an Ofgem price-cap increase lifted gas and electricity bills. Core inflation held at 2.6 per cent and services eased to 3.4 per cent, but with the headline back above target a rate cut stays off the table for a Bank of England that last month saw three members vote to hike.
Regular pay growth edged up to 3.5 per cent even as unemployment rose to 4.9 per cent and payrolls fell in July, leaving a divided Monetary Policy Committee with the signal it least wanted before its next rate decision.
The economy grew 0.4% between April and June, in line with forecasts and firm enough to hand the Bank of England's rate-setting hawks fresh evidence just as markets bet on an autumn cut.
On Thursday morning the Office for National Statistics publishes its first estimate of how the UK economy grew between April and June, the clearest read yet on whether the recovery that carried Britain through the first quarter held into the summer. The number frames the Bank of England's autumn rate path and the consumer story the retail data has only hinted at.
UK retail sales rose 1.3% year on year in July, below the 1.8% twelve-month average, as a 3.8% jump in food masked a 0.7% fall in non-food and a consumer still reluctant to spend on discretionary goods.
The Lloyds House Price Index recorded no monthly growth in July, the first full data-month computed entirely under the bank's own name, as a held Bank Rate caps the pace of any recovery.
A 6-3 vote and a hawkish August Monetary Policy Report reframed the debate around energy and the closed Strait of Hormuz. Governor Bailey used the press conference to tell markets not to price in a rise.
The Debt Management Office will sell just £23.0bn of long-dated conventional gilts in 2026-27, down from £32.5bn a year earlier, even as 30-year yields sit near their highest since 1998. The retreat reshapes who funds Britain, and on what terms.
June's +0.2% tick — the first monthly rise since the spring and the debut print under the renamed Lloyds House Price Index — is a stabilisation built on lender competition and rising wages, not a demand recovery powered by cheaper money.
