BoE money market committee: funding stable, competition for deposits rising
Victoria Shinder2 min readThe Bank of England published on 13 October 2026 the minutes of its Money Markets Committee meeting of 25 September. The committee is a forum where market participants and the Bank discuss sterling unsecured funding, repo and securities lending markets, so its minutes are a read of how the plumbing behaves rather than a policy statement.
Market conditions: smooth, with a eurozone footnote. Members reported that money markets continued to function smoothly and that funding conditions remained stable, even during the recent rise in bond market volatility. Liquidity was described as ample, with limited signs of stress, and cross-currency funding as stable despite geopolitical developments; quarter-end and year-end were expected to remain orderly. Some members noted the risk that volatility in outright asset markets could spill into funding through reduced risk appetite or position unwinds, and some pointed to emerging funding pressure further out the euro curve as Eurosystem liquidity declines. Issuance in European commercial paper was reported to be increasing.
The Bank's own facilities. The chair noted recent use of the Bank's market-wide repo facilities and reminded members that using them, including against a broad range of collateral, is consistent with the intended transition to a repo-led operating framework. The chair also briefed on the Monetary Policy Committee's September decision on quantitative tightening and the related exchange of letters between the Governor and the Chancellor. Members welcomed the predictability of the Bank's balance-sheet announcements.
Leverage ratio and deposits. On the Financial Policy Committee's proposed changes to the leverage ratio framework, members generally welcomed the direction but said leverage is only one constraint among stress-test assumptions, investor expectations and risk-weighted capital. It was therefore hard to predict how far the proposals would increase balance-sheet use in UK money markets in the near term. Members also noted increasing competition for retail and corporate deposits: it has not materially changed funding plans, but if sustained could raise wholesale funding needs and costs. The committee will keep monitoring it.
Longer settlement hours. Bank staff updated on plans to extend RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours. Responses to the May 2026 consultation were broadly supportive and favoured extending existing operating days before adding new ones. Members supported the direction but listed practical questions: liquidity facilities outside current hours, liquidity and collateral over weekends and bank holidays, operational resilience, staffing and automation — challenges they said could weigh most on smaller firms and corporates — as well as how value-date rollover would work within a longer settlement day.
The committee will return in December to Euroclear UK & International's proposed MiniCREST contingency arrangement for an extreme cyber-attack scenario; the next update of the Sterling Money Markets Code is planned for 2027.
Source: Bank of England, "Minutes of the Money Market Committee meeting – September 2026" — https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/minutes/2026/september/money-markets-committee-minutes-september-2026