An audio feed of the Bank of England’s press conferences was leaked to hedge funds before they were broadcast, the Bank has admitted.
The Bank said one of its suppliers had “misused” the feed, which is there as a fall-back in case the video broadcast fails.
As a result traders had access to the words of Mark Carney and his officials between five and eight seconds early.
The Bank of England said it had disabled the supplier’s access.
The hijacking of the audio feed, first reported in the Times gave an advantage to high-speed traders who can make millions of pounds on tiny market moves.
Comments from Bank officials about market sensitive matters such as interest rate decisions can affect the value of sterling and other market assets within seconds.
The Times said it understood that the eavesdropping on the press conferences had been happening at least since the beginning of this year.
The Bank of England said that since the leak “was wholly unacceptable use of the audio feed” and the way hedge funds were allowed to make use of it was “without the Bank’s knowledge or consent, and is being investigated further”.
The matter has been referred to the market regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.