All 16 economists polled by Reuters had said they expected the monetary policy committee to keep rates steady after doing so ever since cutting them from 0.25% more than a year ago.
The BoE's nine monetary policymakers voted 8-1 to keep its government bond-buying programme at 875 billion pounds ($1.22 trillion). They voted 9-0 in favour of keeping its corporate bond programme at 20 billion pounds.
