Bank of England policymaker Paul Fisher said the central bank's latest 75 billion pound ($116.13 billion) cash injection into the economy was the minimum it needed to do and he thought it may need to add to it. "I still think we might need to do some more," Fisher, the central bank's executive director for markets, told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.
Most economists say the BoE will pump a further 50 billion pounds into the economy in February when the current programme of purchases of British government debt, announced in October, comes to a close.
The central bank sharply downgraded its expectations for growth and inflation for 2012 in its latest projections this month, signalling it may further expand its 275 billion pound asset purchase programme.
Fisher said he had supported the October decision to restart quantitative easing because he had been concerned about the worsening state of the British economy since a marked slowdown at the end of 2010.
"I was trying to keep it on the table throughout the year because I was conscious of this deteriorating picture," he said. "For me it was a timing thing. I voted for 75 billion pounds because I thought it was the smallest amount I was absolutely sure we needed to do."
For the moment the BoE's policymakers see no case for increasing monetary stimulus before February, according to minutes of their Nov. 9-10 rate setting meeting, despite a rising chance of a worst-case outcome for the eurozone crisis.