A selection of the best responses from UK business to the latest Bank of England decision on interest rates.

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to keep interest rates at 0.5% and suspend quantitative easing.

Sitting on the fence - Mark Bolsom, Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex:

"The Bank of England has clearly sat on the fence with this decision, highlighting their fear that a double-dip recession is a distinct possibility.”

“It’s unsurprising though - the UK crawled out of recession in the last quarter of 2009 and the Bank will want to see at least two consecutive months of reasonable growth before they even consider tightening monetary policy. With that in mind, we can expect interest rates to remain on hold at 0.5 pc for quite sometime. I stand by my prediction that they will remain at 0.5 pc until 2011 at least.”

A missed opportunity - Philip White, Chief Executive of Syscap, an independent finance provider:

“The decision to halt the Quantitative Easing (QE) scheme represents a real missed opportunity for the Government to provide much needed investment opportunities to UK SMEs, who will be disappointed at this news.

“The Bank of England have restricted themselves by investing the vast majority of the £200bn invested in gilts, with a small percentage in corporate bonds. But they did not invest a single penny in debt issued by SMEs.”

Disappointment - Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry:

“Although the decision to bring the £200 billion programme to an end is not surprising, the economy is still fragile. A significant boost of another £25 billion would have encouraged further business investment.

“The economy has only just achieved a 0.1 per cent growth, when experts predicted it was expected to reach 0.4 per cent. There are signs of recovery, but they are fragile. Manufacturing activity has recently hit a 15-year high but positive figures like this need to be sustained.

“Now is the time for organic growth, which is not helped by placing additional pressures on business through rate increases.”

Quantitative easing's racing days aren't over yet - Sam Hill, Threadneedle, Fixed Income fund:

"Instead of buying Gilts, looking at other assets that have a more direct route to stimulating the economy may well be what is required. Along these lines the Bank of England launched a consultation on a 'Supply Chain Finance Facility' last June but a policy hasn't yet come to fruition as a result. Given continuing commentary on the restriction of credit availability to smaller companies it seems sensible to reconsider this new expression of quantitative easing as an alternative to more Gilt purchases.

"Quantitative easing's' racing days aren't over yet - if he comes under starter's orders again it could be that the jockey is sporting shiny new colours instead of the familiar Gilt-edged silks."