Household expectations also shifted markedly in favour of fewer and later rate increases (Chart 6).8 In parallel, household and business confidence continued to strengthen, reinforcing the economic momentum. For example, the IEA’s Shadow Monetary Policy Committee voted for higher rates at all of its fourteen meetings between November 2013 and December 2014. 8 For more information, see the box on page 12 of the February 2014 Inflation Report. 7  8  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  8  Chart 6: Households consistently expected increases in interest rates to be gradual and limited Median household Bank Rate expectations Per cent 6  2014 Q1 2015 Q1  Pre-crisis average level of  2016 Q1  5  2017 Q1  4  2018 Q1  3 2 1 0  0  1  2  3 Years ahead  4  5  6  Notes: Household expectations are from the Bank/TNS Inflation Attitudes survey and show how Bank Rate is expected to increase relative to the rate prevailing at the time. Pre-crisis average Bank Rate is calculated from 1997 to 2007 inclusive. In the event, the unemployment rate fell far faster than the MPC had expected, falling below 7% in February 2014. But even as the recovery strengthened and survey indicators of output growth reached levels previously associated with sharp policy tightenings, household, company and market expectations about the future path of policy remained subdued and interest rate volatility remained low (Chart 7).
Our regular press conferences where we inform you and the general public about current economic and financial conditions, as well as about our expectations, as you know, are based entirely on data. It is not always possible to put a detailed analytical focus on everything that is available and which we produce as data. But that’s why we live in the “era of Internet statistics". Let’s take for example the interest rate statistics available on our website. If analyzed in details, its granularity is very high, offering a great deal of information on the amount of interest on different types of deposit and credit products, which can be helpful for all of us to make a 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  personal financial decision based on information. As one of the bearers of our statistical system, we also observe the public’s need for new categories of statistical data and within our competencies we try to respond to that need. Among other things, we have introduced new data on payment card transactions, the monitoring of which will be discussed today. Over the past years, aware that traditional forms of data display are no longer the most appropriate way of disseminating data, with the support of the European Union we have created a modern statistical web portal “NBStat". According to multiple analyzes conducted in the central banking community, advanced web-based statistical web portals are the most upto-date statistical tool that disseminates data in the simplest, fastest and most detailed way.