The British pound is under pressure in today’s trading session after weak local economic data pushed back expectations of a rate hike from the Bank of England.

At 2.24pm (GMT) the British currency was trading at $1.2471 down from $1.2525 in yesterday’s trading.

Data out earlier today from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed consumer prices rose to 1.8 per cent in January, up from 1.6 percent in the previous month, but below analysts’ expectations for a number of 1.9 percent. 

“The latest rise in CPI was mainly due to rising petrol and diesel prices, along with a significant slowdown in the fall in food prices “noted ONS head of inflation Mike Prestwood.

The news is all-good for the BOE, as they recently noted they were prepared to let the inflation figures temporarily overshoot their 1 year target (2.72 percent) in order to counter the instability Brexit is bound to cause.

Analysts now predict that a rate rise from the central bank won’t come anytime soon, and any sort of negative data is bound to hurt the pound,

"The recovery in Sterling is not stable, and may easily be eroded by disappointing data. An initial test was this morning with PPI data, which rose much more than expected showing upside pressures due to the past depreciation of sterling. On PPI figures Sterling fell back," says Asmara Jamaleh at Intesa Sanpaolo.

The pound also took a further hit against its US counterpart  as data out of America showed the producer price index (PPI) rose 0.6 percent, against expectations for a figure of 0.3 percent which firmly keeps a rate hike from the US Federal Reserve on track next month.