Broad money dipped 0.1 percent on the month in November. This was its second decline in the last three months but, with base effects positive, small enough to lift annual growth from minus 3.8 percent to minus 2.3 percent. Even so, this was its fifth straight sub-zero print. However, M4 lending expanded a monthly 0.5 percent, its steepest gain since September 2022 and large enough to boost yearly growth to minus 0.8 percent, a 9-month high.

Excluding intermediate other financial institutions, M4 also fell 0.1 percent versus October, its sixth drop since last April. By contrast, similarly adjusted lending was up a solid 0.6 percent and now stands only 0.2 percent lower on the year.

Elsewhere the financial data were mixed but generally modestly upbeat. In the housing market, November mortgage approvals climbed from 47,888 to 50,067, a 5-month high, although individuals made net loan repayments of £0.04 billion following a £0.1 billion repayment in October. At the same time, total consumer credit rose £2.005 billion, up from October's £1.411 billion gain and the steepest rise since March 2017.

In sum, the financial data point to some stabilisation in overall economic activity which will bolster the case of those BoE MPC members arguing against any near-term cut in Bank Rate.

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.