Bank of England made £8bn profit from quantitative easing fund

Telegraph
"The Bank of England is sitting on an £8bn net profit from its £200bn quantitative easing (QE) fund. .....Simon Ward, chief economist at Henderson Global Investors, said that although the fund is currently running an unprecedented level of profit, this would not last for ever."The Bank will be under no illusions that the programme will remain in profit once it tries to sell its gilts," he said. "A rise in yields of half a percentage point would be sufficient to wipe out the current surplus."

The profit on the QE account does not have any benefit for the Government, which is looking for means of reducing its £156bn budget deficit, since the money is merely a transfer of cash from one part of the public sector to another. In fact, the Bank has signalled that it expects to make a small loss from the QE investment by the time it sells the gilts off. But it stresses that this loss will be far outweighed by the economic benefits of the policy.