A TEAM of students showed that they have the financial know-how to become leading economists of the future.

Last November sixth-formers from Bolton School Girls Division won the Greater Manchester heat of the Bank of England Interest Rate Challenge, qualifying for the the Northern Ireland, Scotland and Northern England final of the competition, held in Manchester. They finished third overall.

The annual competition, for A-level students, is run by the Bank of England and The Times newspaper.

The team of four - Parisa Azimy, Meng Qiong Wei, Felicity Hannon and Abigail Dewhurst - gave a 17 minute presentation on whether they agreed with the current Bank of England interest rate using economic data to back up their position.

The judges were three employees of the Bank of England, two of whom report directly to the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee each month.

Felicity said: "Like the bank's monetary policy committee, we had to consider the factors affecting the UK's economic and inflation outlook. Then we had to decide what interest rate should be set to meet the government's 2.0 per cent inflation target."