GBP strengthened against its major rivals in the European session on Thursday amid expectations that the UK's successful rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program would speed up the country's economic recovery.

The head of Britain's vaccine taskforce Clive Dix reported on Tuesday that the UK has so far vaccinated 15.6 million people with a first dose and 546,165 with a second dose, the fastest roll-out per capita of any large country so far. He also added that every adult in the country could be vaccinated by August or September.

The UK's prime minister Boris Johnson said yesterday that the government was considering a staged exit from the third national COVID-19 lockdown, which began on January 5. He will outline the path out of lockdown next Monday (February 22). 

Market participants also digested the remarks of the Bank of England's (BoE) policymaker Michael Saunders, who acknowledged that cutting interest rates below zero could well prove the best tool for the central bank under some future circumstances, but the BoE did not need to make a judgment on this yet.