\nEight months ago the Bank of England governor was unwise enough to tell parliament’s Treasury Committee that leaving the European Union might have adverse effects on the UK economy. Since then, certain MPs have been on his case. Last month even the prime minister appeared to criticise the bank’s monetary policy. In recent weeks, because of this, investors were wondering if Mark Carney might leave the bank at the earliest opportunity in 18 months’ time when he will have been there for five years. The governor put an end to that speculation on Monday when he said he would stay for a total of six years, long enough to see through the supposedly two-year-long Brexit process. Investors expressed their appreciation for his commitment by buying the pound.<\/p>\n
The end result was a fairly neutral week for sterling. It lost four fifths of a euro cent and half a Swiss cent while it picked up half a Japanese yen and one Canadian cent. The pound was unchanged against the NZ dollar and almost so against the US and Australian dollars.<\/p>\n
Rand welcomes fin min release<\/strong> The rand was Monday’s top-performing currency. It was also the top performer for the month, the quarter and the year to date. Since the beginning of January the rand has strengthened by 28.6% against the pound. <\/p>\n Growing differently<\/strong>
\nFor more than six months Pravin Gordhan, South Africa’s finance minister, has been stalked by a special police unit, which alleges abuse of office when he was running the government tax department. Mr Gordhan maintained all along that the accusation was politically-motivated but that did not prevent him being charged with fraud three weeks ago. Investors worried that Mr Gordhan could be forced from office, to be replaced by someone less skilful and more eager to please president Zuma. On Monday the chief prosecutor put an end to such doubts when he said all charges had been dropped.<\/p>\n![\"US](\"http:\/\/www.mycurrencytransfer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/US-GDP-expanding-faster-than-Europe.jpg\")
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\nGross domestic product data released during the last few days tended to confirm what investors already thought: America’s economy is expanding faster than Europe’s. The United States saw provisional growth of 0.7% in the third quarter of the year while Europe’s economy expanded by 0.3%. UK growth slotted neatly between the two at 0.5%.<\/p>\n