Broad money growth contracted in June, its fourth fall in the last five months. A 0.1 percent monthly dip was small enough to nudge annual growth a tick higher at 0.1 percent but this was still its second weakest reading since September 2015. M4 lending was flat, the first time it has not fallen in 2023.

Excluding intermediate other financial corporations, the picture was no brighter with M4 still down 0.1 percent versus May to leave yearly growth unchanged at just 0.6 percent. Adjusted lending was unchanged on the month and down 1.5 percent from a year ago.

Elsewhere, the rest of the financial data were somewhat stronger. Mortgage approvals rose from 51,143 to 54,662 and home lending was £0.14 billion after a £0.9 billion drop in May. Overall consumer credit (£1.661 billion after £1.09 billion) was also firmer.

In sum, the June data show some resilience, notably in the housing market. That said, borrowing in general remains soft and indicative of an economy struggling to keep its head above water. Today's update leaves the BoE MPC on course to raise Bank Rate again on Thursday.

M4 is the Bank of England's main broad measure of money supply. There is no target for M4 and in practice the central bank tends to follow an adjusted measure that excludes intermediate other financial corporations in order to get a handle on current underlying trends. The M4 private sector lending counterpart is the most closely watched aspect of the report.

M4 is similar to the M3 measure used in some other countries. M4 includes everything in M2 (also called the retail component of M4) plus other deposits with an original maturity of up to five years; other claims on financial institutions such as repos and bank acceptances; debt instruments issued by financial institutions including commercial paper and bonds with a maturity of up to five years. Understanding the role of money in the economy has always been an important issue for policymakers. And the pickup in broad money growth and decline in credit spreads over the past three years together with more recent financial market turbulence has made it a particularly pertinent issue. Monetary data can potentially provide important corroborative or incremental information about the outlook for inflation. Quantitative easing is essentially a policy aimed at boosting money supply.