Bank of England will aim for 'ample' reserves in UK financial system, official says

LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England is aiming for Britain's financial system to have an "ample" level of reserves rather than a scarcity or the current surplus as it unwinds its past asset purchases, senior official Nathanael Benjamin said on Wednesday.

Benjamin, the BoE's executive director for financial stability strategy and risk, said at an event hosted by the OMFIF central banking think tank that banks with access to BoE liquidity facilities would have incentives not to hoard reserves and to ensure that they spread through the financial system.

"If we get the calibration of incentives right across our monetary operating framework and regulatory frameworks, reserves should be neither scarce nor abundant - just ample. Banks would maintain an appropriate level of reserves for their own liquidity management purposes," he said.

(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by Suban Abdulla)