Minutes released on Wednesday of a meeting earlier this month of the Bank of England's (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) showed the members unanimously rejecting the temptation to extend the quantitative easing (QE) program.

The minutes said the members of the committee, which also sets interest rates, were firm on pausing the QE program at its previously agreed 200-billion-pound limit.

The QE program saw the BoE, as Britain's central bank, buy financial assets, like gilts, from financial institutions in order to pump cash into the economy and increase liquidity in the face of the worst part of the financial crisis last year.

The committee said in its report that there was a risk that inflation expectations might rise, and a possibility that expanding the size of the asset purchase program might add to that.

For some members, there also remained risks that adding to the size of the asset purchase program might increase the chance of unwarranted increases in asset prices, and that attempting to eliminate the degree of spare capacity too rapidly might eventually result in more inflationary pressure.

Commenting on the strength of the economy, the MPC said: "The medium-term headwinds to economic activity remained considerable. Although credit conditions appeared to have begun a slow process of normalization, they would be likely to remain tight for some time. Meanwhile, the need to strengthen public and private sector balance sheets would weigh on spending."

Opposing those headwinds, said the committee, was the stimulus from "exceptionally accommodative" monetary policy, and the past depreciation of sterling.

The stabilization of labor and asset markets, as well as of confidence indicators, suggested to the committee that the likelihood of the worst downside risks had diminished.

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