BoE papers reveal governing body's ignorance of impending crisis

New documents show the Bank of England was seemingly unaware of the impending financial crisis in the weeks prior to its emergence.

Minutes of meetings held by the central bank's senior 'Court' committee between 2007 and 2009, released today, also show the BoE's governing body was kept in the dark over key decisions such as bank recapitalisation. Details of a meeting in July 2007, for example, show the Court focused on discussing staff pensions and new members of the Monetary Policy Committee. The Bank identified that liquidity was a concern but took no action to resolve this. Members were also told the Bank was working on a model to detect risk in the financial system. But the minutes also showed a report by A...