LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s banks need at least six months to prepare for any cut in interest rates to negative territory, the Bank of England said on Thursday as it kept its stimulus programmes on hold ahead of an economic recovery later this year.

The central bank published results from its review of how prepared lenders like HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays would be to implement negative interest rates for the first time.

“The Prudential Regulation Authority’s engagement with regulated firms had indicated that implementation of a negative Bank Rate over a shorter timeframe than six months would attract increased operational risks,” the BoE said in a statement.

The pound jumped by more than half a cent against the U.S. dollar and British government bond yields jumped by around 3 basis points as investors scaled back their bets that the BoE will implement negative rates anytime soon.

The BoE said it did not want send a signal that it intended to set a negative Bank Rate at some point but it “would be appropriate to start the preparations to provide the capability to do so if necessary in the future.”

BoE regulators should start getting banks ready to implement negative rates at any point after six months, it said.

The BoE maintained its Bank Rate at 0.1% and left the size of its total asset purchase programme at 895 billion pounds ($1.22 trillion).

The BoE said it expected the economy would shrink by 4% in the first three months of 2021 but it was expected to recover rapidly towards pre-COVID levels over 2021.

(Reporting by UK bureau)