Bank of England may look at rates again - Carney

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

Sean Duffy

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has described the fall in the value of sterling as "fairly substantial" and admitted the central bank's interest-rate setters would take it into account.

Speaking to British politicians yesterday, Mr Carney repeated a recent comment that the BoE did not target a particular level of sterling but was not indifferent to it.

Earlier this year, sterling hit a high of £1.42 against the euro, but is now trading at around the £1.05 mark.

In Italy, shares in troubled lender Monti Dei Paschi were flat yesterday, despite the bank announcing it would offer a voluntary debt-to-equity swap to all holders of its €5bn in subordinated bonds, including retail investors.

In recent months, doubts over the world's oldest bank have prompted persistent speculation over the health of the Italian banking sector.

After the conversion, the bank will launch a share issue - its third in as many years - to plug the residual capital shortfall.

"For this plan to be successful, a relatively large participation of investors in the liability-management exercise would be essential, in our opinion, in the region of at least 40pc to 50pc," analysts at BBVA said in a note.

In Dublin, the Iseq overall index of Irish shares closed down by 1.08pc, to finish the day at 5969.85.

Financial firm IFG was one of the day's biggest losers, with the share price losing 3.4pc. Drinks distributor C&C lost 3.3 pc, while Swiss food firm Aryzta lost 1.6pc. Gains were limited in Dublin yesterday, with Applegreen (1.6pc) and Zamano (1.4pc) leading the way. European markets were also down. Germany's DAX lost 0.14pc while the CAC lost 0.42pc in Paris. London's FTSE 100 rose by 0.3pc.