Broad money grew 0.5 percent on the month in June following an unrevised 0.1 percent dip in May. The increase lifted annual growth from 0.3 percent to 1.0 percent and means that M4 has expanded in four of the last five months. However, over the second quarter, the annualised rate was a modest 2.0 percent, down from 2.8 percent in the three months to May and matching a 7-month low. M4 lending was up just 0.1 percent versus May, unwinding that month's drop and reducing the annualised second quarter rate to just 0.8 percent.

Excluding intermediate other financial institutions, M4 also rose only 0.1 percent on the month while lending was up 0.2 percent. Underlying trends remain positive but subdued.

Elsewhere, in the housing market, mortgage approvals slipped again, from 60,134 to a 5-month low of 59,976 but lending picked up from £1.26 billion to £2.65 billion. Overall consumer credit rose £1.162 billion, after £1.494 billion last time.

Accordingly, the overall picture remains mixed but would still seem to be consistent with a gradual recovery in economic activity. Today's update should have few implications for Thursday BoE MPC announcement.

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.