Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Markets
Economics

UBS Predicts U.K. Rate Hike in May If Brexit Transition Agreed

  • U.K. economic growth forecast for 2018 also upgraded
  • Bloomberg Economics has changed its call, sees August move
Updated on

UBS AG brought forward its forecast for the next U.K. interest-rate increase, though it also sounded a warning bell about such a move.

Bank of England policy makers will raise their benchmark by 25 points at their May meeting, strategist John Wraith wrote in a report dated Jan. 31. In forecasts published after the BOE’s November rate hike, UBS had predicted no further increases through 2019. Its new prediction is “explicitly conditional” on the British government and the European Union reaching an agreement on a transitional deal by the time of the EU Council Summit in late March.