Unemployment falls, but so does Pound

Sterling has fallen across the board this morning, despite figures showing a slight fall in unemployment to 2.46m at the end of March. The official rate is now 7.7%.

Meanwhile the Bank of England minutes showed that the MPC voted 6-3 in favour of keeping interest rates on hold in May. This was as expected, although the minutes revealed that 2 of the members who did vote for an interest rate rise are not entirely convinced that the policy would be on the right path.

Interest rate rises would be a major factor in increasing the value of the Pound and therefore would be good news if you need to make international payments. The fact that the committee is even less committed to a rate rise than was previously thought, is the reason behind the fall in the Pound this morning.