LONDON (Reuters) -- Bank of England policymakers voted unanimously this month to leave the size of its asset purchase program unchanged at 175 billion pounds, minutes to the central bank's October policy meeting showed on Wednesday.

All nine policymakers also voted to hold interest rates steady at a record-low of 0.5 percent, judging that recent economic developments had not been enough to warrant any immediate change in the monetary stance.
“There were differences of view among members of the Committee on the balance of risks to the medium-term outlook for inflation and how it had shifted in recent months,” the minutes said, noting that November's new growth and inflation forecasts would allow a fuller discussion.
“All Committee members, however, agreed that recent developments were not sufficiently compelling to justify revising the target level of asset purchases that had been agreed in the August meeting,” the minutes added.
The Bank raised the total amount of funds for quantitative easing by 50 billion pounds to 175 billion pounds in August, though Governor Mervyn King and two other policymakers had argued for a 75 billion increase.
Last month the minutes reported that King still thought a larger increase in the program could be justified. October's minutes made no mention of this.
The minutes said that the Monetary Policy Committee believed QE had had a substantial impact on asset prices in the way that it had anticipated when it launched the program in March.
The MPC also said recent economic developments had generally been positive. “The latest official data and the most recent surveys suggested that the level of output in the third quarter was likely to be close to the central projection in the August Inflation Report,” the minutes said.
“Asset price developments, including the rises equity prices and declines in short-term interest rates, and the sterling exchange rate, would provide a boost to output further out.”
The minutes did not go into detail about the MPC members' difference of views on the inflation outlook.
The minutes said -- in line with other recent BoE statements -- that inflation was likely to rise in the short-term because of base effects and a planned reversal of last year's cut in value-added tax.
However, it said the medium-term outlook for inflation, which was critical for setting policy, would be largely unaffected by these short-term developments as inflation expectations appeared to be well-anchored.
The minutes noted that there were still risks to growth from continued fragility in the banking sector, which hampered banks' willingness to lend, as well as uncertainty over the global recovery, in particular whether better Asian demand would offset subdued U.S. consumer spending.
As with last month, there appeared to be no discussion of a change to the way in which commercial banks' reserves with the BoE are remunerated, an issue King had raised in parliamentary testimony in September.