CENTRAL banks have to be prepared to be unpopular and the guardians of the pound in Dame Street are certainly not flavour of the month at the moment, what with exporters grouching about the sterling exchange rate and market dealers trying to second guess the Bank's interest rate intentions.

The Bank, of course, will always try and be inscrutable in the face of criticism and give away as little as possible. Jim O'Leary, of Davy stockbrokers, complains in the broker's latest market commentary that the Bank will not even reveal the rate at which it provides short-term funds to the market through so called "repo" deals.

He writes: "Such information is as closely guarded as the weights in the effective exchange rate index, the whereabouts of Shergar and the Third Secret of Fatima."

Time for a bit of transparency, perhaps, in the glass palace on Dame Street.