The Bank of England introduced the Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS) in April 2008 to improve the liquidity position of the UK banking system. It did so by helping banks finance assets that had got stuck on their balance sheets following the closure of some asset-backed securities markets from 2007...

The Bank of England implements the policy stance of the Monetary Policy Committee through its operations in the sterling money markets. It also uses these operations to reduce the costs of disruption to the liquidity and payment services supplied by banks. In order to ensure their continued...