Bank of England allots record 19 billion stg at weekly repo

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England allotted a record 19.096 billion pounds ($24.40 billion) in its weekly short-term repo operation on Thursday, up from 17.186 billion pounds the week before.

The sums allotted by the BoE have been steadily rising to hit successive records in recent weeks.

The BoE uses the repos - where banks temporarily receive central bank cash for less liquid assets such as government bonds - to keep overnight money market rates near its target as it unwinds some of its quantitative easing bond purchases.

($1 = 0.7825 pounds)

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by William Schomberg)