Minutes of the Money Market Committee meeting – June 2025

Minutes

Item 1 – Welcome

The Chair thanked members for attending and confirmed that the Minutes of the Money Markets Committee (MMC) March 2025 meeting had been published on the Bank’s website.^{footnote [1]}

The Chair welcomed those who were attending as part of the Bank’s Meeting Varied People (MVP) initiative.

The Chair shared thanks for Avi Tillu’s (PIMCO) service to the Committee following his recent departure. Similarly, the Chair thanked Tom Archer for his service on the Committee Secretariat.

Item 2 – Ways of working and female representation

A member of the Committee and a Bank attendee gave a joint presentation focussing on recent developments in ways of working best practice – with particular consideration for successful initiatives to enhance female representation in financial markets roles. This discussion was prompted by agenda Item 4 of the Committee’s December 2024 meeting^{footnote [2]}.

During the discussion, several members shared their career-long lived experiences in a variety of workplaces. Members highlighted the benefits they had experienced from recent innovations in flexible working-hours arrangements. Other initiatives discussed included improved management training and mentorship programmes. Members highlighted that they considered offering enhanced flexibility as key to motivating and retaining high performing employees with responsibilities to balance both in and out of the workplace.

Members also discussed the challenges that enhanced working practice flexibility could present, particularly around trading controls and training of more junior employees. One Committee member also noted a tension between offering enhanced flexibility to their employees with the potential for extended RTGS operating hours^{footnote [3]}.

Item 3 – Discussion on market conditions

A member of the Committee provided a presentation covering recent themes and conditions as they related to UK money markets. The presentation noted, and the Committee subsequently discussed: (1) healthy and stable money market conditions during the period of elevated broader market volatility in April 2025; (2) increasing usage of the Bank’s Short-Term Repo (STR) and Indexed Long-Term Repo (ILTR) facilities; and (3) globally increasing term premia.

Members agreed that the Bank’s repo facilities had been helping to keep rates rangebound and were providing an effective backstop to money market rates as the Bank continued to drain reserves with its programme of Quantitative Tightening (QT) and unwind of TFSME.

Whilst members noted continuing but concentrated upward pressure in money market rates around key reporting dates, they emphasised that these periods had continued to be orderly with little evidence of constrained liquidity in practice.

One member highlighted that they expected funding demand to increase over time and therefore preparatory measures may need to be taken to enable greater bank intermediation and enhanced centralised clearing.

Item 4 – Transitioning to a repo-led operating framework – follow ups

The Chair signposted that the Bank had published a feedback statement^{footnote [4]} summarising the responses to the Bank’s December 2024 discussion paper ‘Transitioning to a repo-led operating framework’^{footnote [5]}’; the Chair also signposted the accompanying speech from Vicky Saporta (Executive Director, Markets) ‘Learning by doing’^{footnote [6]} and invited the Committee to share their reflections.

The Committee discussed the changes – including increasing the total amount of reserves available in each ILTR auction, increasing the quantity of reserves available at minimum clearing spreads and introducing a gentler upward sloping supply curve to the facility’s auction mechanism.

The discussion evolved towards developments in the difference between the SONIA Interest Rate Benchmark and Bank Rate. It was noted that the difference between the two rates had continued to narrow as excess reserves had drained from the system. Some members and the Bank noted the need for heightened monitoring of market conditions as excess reserves continue to drain. There was also interest in the volume-weighted distribution of SONIA where recent publications have highlighted the move higher in the 90th percentile.

Item 5 – Sub-Committee updates

A member of the Committee provided a readout of the most recent meeting of the UK Money Markets Code Sub-Committee – highlighting the need for renewed socialisation of the Code to address awareness gaps in industry where they had arisen, particularly since the pandemic.

Committee Attendees

Committee members

James Winterton – Association of Corporate Treasurers

Cristiano Guidi – Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Ina Budh-Raja – Bank of New York Mellon

Emma Cooper – BlackRock

Marije Verhelst – Euroclear

Inna Shaykevich – Goldman Sachs

James Murphy – HSBC

Chris Brown – Insight Investment

Tony Baldwin – LCH

John Wherton – L&G

Scott Creed – Lloyds Bank

Nina Moylett – M&G

Chirag Patel – Rabobank

Alan Williams – Santander UK

Romain Sinclair – Société Générale

John Argent – Tradition

MVP attendees and Observers

Jo Whelan – DMO

Paul Canty – DMO

Liam Browne – FCA

Christian Howitt – Goldman Sachs

Aydin Hasan – Goldman Sachs

Nick Sheffield – Insight Investment

Bank of England

Matt Roberts-Sklar (Chair)

Tom Archer

Callum Ashworth

Daniel Beale

Kash Chundoo

Simon Dolan

Sumita Ghosh

Michelle Kearns

Kirstine Macmillan

Derin Thrasher

Jack Welling

Janet Yum

Apologies

Gordon Lowson – Aberdeen

Alan Barnes – FCA

Edward Bond – J.P. Morgan

Nic Erevik – Newcastle Building Society