The Bank Of England

Introduction:

            The bank of England was established in the year 1694 as a government bank, it acts as the central bank and its roles include maintaining monetary stability, issuing bank notes and other functions related to a central bank. The governor of the bank is governor Melvyn King.

            The Bank of England has a committee that meets on monthly basis to make decisions regarding interest rates, the committee has 9 member and they include the governor, two deputies to the governor, the chief economist, executive director to the market operations and four members who are appointed by the chancellor to the exchequer. The committee meets on the first week of the month to make decisions regarding interest rates, the decisions regarding interest rates is made through a voting process where every members vote counts and has equal voting strength.

            This paper discusses the history of the bank of England, the roles the bank plays regarding monetary policies and the difference between the Bank of England and the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

  History:

             The bank of England was founded by William Paterson in 1694. William proposed a loan to the government where the providers of this loan would become the governments’ bank. The government needed 1.2 million pounds loan which was to be serviced at a rate of 4,000 pounds per year and the interest rate was to be 8%, in July 27th the royal charter was granted and was later renewed in 1742 and 1764 and later in the year 1781.

            The bank was located at the temple of Mithra but in 1734 the location was changed to where it is now at Thread needle. Its first governor was John Houblon who was in 1990 depicted in the 50 pound note which was issued that year.

            In 1781 the bank charter was renewed which allowed the bank to pay out in gold until the year 1797 when the war had diminished all gold reserves and the government came in and prohibited the bank to pay out in gold, this prohibition however lasted until the year 1821.

            In the year 1844 the banks act was to tie the issuing of notes to gold reserves, private banks had to give gold reserves for the notes they issued, however other banks continued to issue their own notes but in 1930 this stopped.

            It was in the year 1870 that the bank of England was given the right to make interest rate policies, later in the year 1997 the policy committee of the bank was given full responsibility of determining interest rates and also targeting inflation rates of the economy.

 Bank of England and interest rates

Every central bank of an economy has the following roles to play:

o       Formulating and implementing monetary policies

o       It is the bank to the government

o       Bank to all the other commercial banks

o       Ensure that the banking act is followed by all the other commercial banks

            Regarding interest rates and the banks of England the bank has a committee that makes decisions regarding interest rates, decisions are made through a vote by the members of the committee whereby the results are published and announced on the same day the decision is made by the committee that meet once a month.

Government pass the interest setting to the Bank

            Previously decisions regarding interest rates that prevail in the economy were made by the treasury, in 1997 May Gordon Brown granted the central bank the responsibility of making decisions regarding interest rate, at this time Gordon was the chancellor to the Exchequer, this was followed by act of1998which allowed the bank to make decisions regarding interest rates, this act also gives the power to the government to make decisions regarding interest rate in times of crisis and emergencies.

 Interest rate committee

            The Bank of England interest rate committee meets on monthly basis to make decisions regarding interest rates, the committee has 9 member and they include the governor, two deputies to the governor, the chief economist, executive director to the market operations and four members who are appointed by the chancellor to the exchequer.

            The members meet on the first week of the month and this is particularly on Thursdays or on Wednesday, interest rates are announced on the same day the committee make a decision which involves voting where each vote by members have equal weight.

  The single currency

            The bank of England is not interested in the single currency. This is because of the black Wednesday which led to a loss of funds amounting to 3 billion pounds in the year 1992. as at this year the British economy was a member of ERM which stands for the European exchange rate mechanism, after black Wednesday the pound withdrew from the ERM following the loss. Due to this therefore the banks of England is not interested in the single currency due to speculative attacks and other economic instability that may be caused by external factors from other economies in the world.

 The Bank of England and the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan

            The bank of England and the bank of Kazakhstan are similar in various views which include that they are both lender of last resort to all the commercial banks, they are the bank to the government of the economy, they both issue notes and coins, they both involve themselves in making monetary policies regarding interest rates. However there exist some differences in these two central banks which are discussed below.

            The national bank of Kazakhstan has the following functions:

o       Formulation and implementing of monetary policy

o       Foreign exchange regulation and control

o       Issuance of currency in terms of notes and coins

o       It is the bank to the government in that it collects taxes on behalf of the government and also pays on behalf of the government.

o       It is the lender of last resort to all the commercial banks in Kazakhstan.

             The first difference between the bank of England and the bank of Kazakhstan is that the bank of England does not regulate the foreign exchange rate, the national bank of Kazakhstan on the other hand has this role to play and this is one major difference between the two central banks.

            The bank of England has a monetary policy committee which makes decisions which are made through voting, in the bank of England we have 9 members of the committee who make decisions, for the national bank of Kazakhstan this is different in that decision are made by a board of directors, the board of directors has 9 members who include:

o       The governor of the national bank of Kazakhstan

o       The deputy who is a head in the administration of the president of Kazakhstan

o       Minister of budget planning and economics in Kazakhstan

o       Minister of finance in Kazakhstan

o       Governor of regulations and supervision of financial organisations in Kazakhstan

o       Four deputy Governors of the national bank of Kazakhstan

             Therefore form the above the bank of England and the national bank of Kazakhstan are different in that for the national bank of Kazakhstan it has four deputies and the bank of England has only two deputies, the national bank of Kazakhstan also comprises of a board which has several government agents who rank high in the government while for the bank of England only two agents are government officials.

            The other difference is that The national bank of Kazakhstan is governed by a board of directors while the bank of England is governed by a committee, The national bank of Kazakhstan is governed by a board of directors which comprises of The governor of the national bank of Kazakhstan, The deputy who is a head in the administration of the president of Kazakhstan, Minister of budget planning and economics in Kazakhstan, Minister of finance in Kazakhstan, Governor of regulations and supervision of financial organisations in Kazakhstan and Four deputy Governors of the national bank of Kazakhstan, on the other hand the bank of England has a committee which comprises of the governor, two deputies to the governor, the chief economist, executive director to the market operations and four members who are appointed by the chancellor to the exchequer

            Another difference is that Bank of England interest rate committee meets on monthly basis to make decisions regarding interest rates, for the national bank of Kazakhstan the board of directors must meet at least twice a month to make decisions regarding both the interest rates and also the exchange rates. Also the bank of England decisions are made through a vote by all the members of the committee however for the national bank of Kazakhstan the decisions are made through discussion and the final decisions are met through a consensus where the governor shares the meetings.

            Interest rates in the bank of England are determined by the committee while for the bank of Kazakhstan the interest rates are determined by the board of directors, the bank of England has got little to do with other policy in the country while the bank of Kazakhstan has more roles to play in interest rates and other monetary policies.

            The bank of Kazakhstan has a role to play in target inflation using both interest rates, money supply, while form the bank of England the target inflation is determined by interest rates only. Therefore the bank of Kazakhstan has more major roles to play in the running of the economy. Therefore the bank of England is not much involved in targeting inflation using other monetary policies except the use of interest rates.

            The bank of Kazakhstan has a role to play in the determination of the exchange rate which is not the case for the bank of England. Therefore the bank of Kazakhstan has a major role to play in exchange rate and determining the rate of exchange of the currency with the foreign currencies, for the bank of England this is not the case because issues concerning exchange rates are dealt with by the exchequer

Conclusion:

            The bank of England was established in the year 1694 as a government bank, it acts as the central bank and its roles include maintaining monetary stability, issuing bank notes and other functions related to a central bank, Previously decisions regarding interest rates were made by the treasury, in 1997 the central bank was granted the responsibility of making decisions regarding interest rate, the  act of 1998 allowed the bank to make decisions regarding interest rates, this act also gives the power to the government to make decisions regarding interest rate in times of crisis and emergencies.

            The Bank of England has a committee that meets on monthly basis to make decisions regarding interest rates, the committee has 9 member and they include the governor, two deputies to the governor, the chief economist, executive director to the market operations and four members who are appointed by the chancellor to the exchequer. The committee meets on the first week of the month and decisions regarding interest rates are announced on the same day the committee make a decision which involves voting where each vote by members have equal weight.

            There exist differences between the bank of England and the bank of Kazakhstan, the bank of England does not regulate the foreign exchange rate, the national bank of Kazakhstan on the other hand has this role to play and this is one major difference between the two central banks. the bank of England and the national bank of Kazakhstan are also different in that for the national bank of Kazakhstan it has four deputies and the bank of England has only two deputies, the national bank of Kazakhstan also comprises of a board which has several government agents who rank high in the government while for the bank of England only two agents are government officials

            As a result of the black Wednesday in 1992 the bank of England is not interested in a single currency, the black Wednesday led to a loss of funds amounting to an estimated 3 billion pounds. Prior to black Wednesday the British economy was a member of ERM which stands for the European exchange rate mechanism, after black Wednesday the pound withdrew from the ERM following the loss. therefore the banks of England is not interested in the single currency due to speculative attacks and other economic instability that may be caused by external factors from other economies in the world.

 References:

 National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2007) history and the functions of the bank, retrieved on 12th October, available at http://www.nationalbank.kz/?docid=107&uid=941C2ABA-802C-E8FB-35A56189C3275FE8

 The bank of England (2007) history and the functions of the bank of England, retrieved on 12th October, available at www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/history/index.htm

 Wikipedia (2007) Black Wednesday, retrieved on 12th October, available at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

 Single currency (2007) the euro, retrieved on 12th October, available at www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/euro.html

 Wikipedia (2007) functions of a central bank, retrieved on 12th October, available at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank