BoE’s Mann says sees pound sensitive to views on Fed, ECB outlook

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LONDON — Bank of England rate-setter Catherine Mann said on Tuesday that the pound could face downward pressure if investors have not yet fully priced in hawkish messages from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

“The important question for me with regard to the pound is how much of that existing hawkish tone is already priced into the pound,” Mann told Bloomberg television in an interview.

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“If it’s already priced in, then what we see is what we get. But if it’s not completely priced in, then there could be depreciation pressure.”

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Asked how much of the messages from other central banks about higher interest rates outside Britain had been priced in to the value of sterling, Mann said: “They’ve been talking hawkish for a while but I think perhaps there’s more to go.”

She told Bloomberg that weakness in the value of the pound was “significant for inflation” which has fallen from a peak of 11.1% in October but remained above 10% in January.

Sterling is down about 1.6% against the U.S. dollar and about 3% against the euro over the past three months.

The BoE raised interest rates to 4% last month but suggested it was close to ending a run of increases which started in December 2021.

Mann voted for the latest 50-basis-point rate rise in line with the majority on the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee. At previous meetings she has voted for bigger rate rises than most of her MPC colleagues.

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The former chief economist at Citi and the OECD told Bloomberg that she remained worried about the persistence of core inflation and the strong pricing power of firms who were able to pass on their costs to customers.

Asked how much further the BoE should raise rates, she said: “I’ve had recent speeches where I’ve indicated that I thought more needed to be done in order to ensure that expectations in particular are for a declining rate of inflation and the embeddedness to be mitigated.”

On the recent weakness in Britain’s housing market, which deepened after former prime minister Liz Truss’s “mini-budget” crisis last autumn, Mann said she saw signs of recovery.

“We’ve seen a reduction in mortgage rates from the high point last fall. We see more competition in terms of products coming from various lenders,” she said. “And so that suggests to me that there’s more revival in process as opposed to a continued downward momentum.” (Reporting by William Schomberg, writing by Andy Bruce)