The Bank of England (BoE), Britain's central bank, raised the benchmark interest rates by 0.25 percentage point to 0.5 percent, BoE announced on Thursday.

It's the first time in more than 10 years since the Bank of England raised interest rates in July 2007.

At BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting ending on 1 November, the MPC voted by a majority of 7-2 to increase the rates.

The Committee voted unanimously to maintain the stock of sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bond purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, at 10 billion pounds (13.1 billion U.S. dollars).

The Committee also voted unanimously to maintain the stock of British government bond purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, at 435 billion pounds.

The MPC sets monetary policy in order to meet the 2 percent inflation target and in a way that helps to sustain growth and employment. However, inflation has been running higher than that since February, and in September it hit 3 percent, the highest rate since April 2012.