CREST problems return, Bank of England delays gilt buy-back

CREST problems return, Bank of England delays gilt buy-back

LONDON - The CREST financial markets settlement system, which sits at the heart of more than 1 trillion pounds' ($1.29 trillion) worth of daily share and bond trades, suffered more technical problems on Monday, forcing the Bank of England to delay a gilt buy-back.CREST's owner, Euroclear, reported intermittent delays which it believed were related to back-up procedures that it had to take on Friday when the system experienced an outage."We are closely monitoring the situation and taking actions to resolve any issues with the utmost priority," Euroclear said.CREST is the central securities depository for share and UK government bond markets in the United Kingdom and for Irish stocks.The BoE had been due to hold a regular 1.5 billion-pound buy-back of British government bonds on Monday as part of its programme