Bailey speech: Latest inflation data shows more downward pressure than expected

While testifying before the UK Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey called the latest inflation data "good news" and noted that it showed more downward pressure than they expected.

Key takeaways

"Downward pressure on inflation is quite broad-based."

"Overall inflation data leaves us broadly where we expected to be."

"This week's data does not really change our view from February policy decision."

"We have moved from how restrictive policy needs to be to for how long we need to maintain policy stance."

"Services inflation is not compatible with 2% inflation."

"We are seeing signs of pay growth coming down."

"Latest wage data showed quite a marked reduction but not as far as we thought."

"We need to see more evidence of slowing wage growth to be confident of inflation at 2%."

Market reaction

These comments failed to trigger a noticeable reaction in GBP/USD. At the time of press, the pair was down 0.3% on the day at 1.2550.