The Bank of England announced that they loaned $3.2 billion to an undisclosed bank at their penalty rate of 6.75 percent. The emergency loan facility is usually tapped only when banks have funding problems, but earlier this month, Barclays PLC borrowed 630 million because a loan from HSBC was delayed.
Therefore the market is taking this in stride because it could once again be related to a settlement issue instead rather than a major liquidity problem. The British pound is still lower however partly because of the loan but also because the CBI industrial trends survey fell to a 9 month low in the month of August. This suggests that retail sales in general may be weakening.