The Bank of England is ramping up its temporary bond buying program to prepare banks for liquidity pressures as the scheme reaches its end on Friday (14 October).

The bank previously said it would buy up to £5bn in gilts per day, or £65bn over the course of the program, but has now increased the limit to £10bn.

In a statement this morning (10 October), the bank said it was "prepared to deploy this unused capacity to increase the maximum size of the remaining five auctions above the current level of up to £5bn in each auction".

"The maximum auction size will be confirmed each morning at 9am and will be set at up to £10bn in today's operation," it added.

The bank began the bond buying scheme last month following the government's Mini Budget that sent gilt markets spiralling in reaction and the BoE said today it had commenced this programme to "restore market functioning in long-dated government bonds and reduce risks from contagion to credit conditions for UK households and businesses".

This emergency support was set at a limit of £5bn per day, but the bank has only purchased £5bn total in gilts, with some days seeing no purchases at all.

The central bank also said it would be launching a Temporary Expanded Collateral Repo Facility to ease liquidity pressures for banks in preparation for the program to end.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said on Twitter that the central bank is "telling markets not to pre-emptively test the bank".

Former pensions minister Steve Webb added that the move "should help to reduce any risk of a 'cliff edge' at the end of the week when the current special measures are switched off".

This was the first of three additional measures it was putting in place to "support an orderly end of its purchase scheme".

The second motion was the launch of a temporary scheme to help UK banks to ease the liquidity squeeze on liability driven investment (LDI) pension funds, which were forced to sell assets when UK government bond prices slumped. The Temporary Expanded Collateral Repo Facility (TECRF) will "enable banks to help to ease liquidity pressures facing their client LDI funds through liquidity insurance operations, which will run beyond the end of this week", the Bank of England stated.

Finally, the central bank said it "stands ready" to support the LDI pensions funds throughout its regular Indexed Long Term Repo operations.