03/02/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Ben Thompson and Sally Bundock.

Privacy Shield, a new deal between the US and Europe promises

to keep Europeans data safe from US intelligence but will it get

the green light from politicians in Brussels?

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday, 3rd February.

After the old data-sharing framework, Safe Harbour,

was deemed unfit for purpose - it left business in legal limbo.

We'll assess what it could mean for firms on both sides

ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned company is closing

in on a $43 billion dollar deal to buy Swiss firm Syngenta.

Markets remain pretty fickle and volatile

We'll get the inside track on the gadget that's helping small

And as a Chem-China snaps up Sygenta for a massive $43 billion

we want to know do you worry about what goes into your food?

The European Commission and the United States have agreed

on a new set of rules for how our personal data can be

It's called the EU-US Privacy Shield.

It comes after the previous deal, known as Safe Harbour,

was declared unfit for purpose in October.

The new rules are designed to protect the rights of Europeans,

regardless of where their data is actually stored.

If you live in the EU and use sites like Google, Facebook or iTunes,

your personal data will have been removed from your country and

shipped off to the US for processing. It happened as part of a

deal called Safe Harbour which came into force in 2000, but last year, a

Facebook user challenged the deal. He said it allowed US intelligence

agencies to look at his data while it was being stored in the States.

He won and the data sharing agreement was ruled invalid. Now, a

new deal has been agreed. This mechanism will be known as EU-US

privacy shield. Under the terms of the new deal, there will be an

annual joint review on the new data sharing pact. Complaints from Europe

will be dealt with on an individual basis but a new US Government

employee. The new pack still needs political approval, but it will come

as a relief from both sides of the Atlantic.

Dee-Ann Huward-Mills, Head of data protection at Baker

This will be an interesting day. We are expecting to hear announcements

from the EU watchdogs, data protection authorities and that's

going to be a very, very interesting development. After the old deal was

thrown out, firms really were in legal limbo, not knowing whose laws

they should be complying with. This should be a sigh of relief? It

presents a good opportunity for business certainty. Much needed

business certainty and the firms and the businesses that take data

protection and privacy seriously will come out on top and have an

opportunity to build the consumer trust. It is critical. Is the burden

greater on them in terms of what they have to do to make sure they

are following the letter of the law? I think this is going to be an area

where firms are going to have to take data protection and privacy

seriously. They will have to look at the systems they have in place and

perhaps audit and see where they are. We all interface with the

internet, we have smartphones and whether you are a retailer or a

pharmaceutical business or financial organisations, they are going to

have to take to area very seriously indeed. Clarify what data we are

talking about here. This is data we have willingly provided and put

online or given to firms? It is information about you and myself.

When we go to a store, we purchase goods. The organisations are able to

track what we're doing, where we surf, what we download and so it is

information about you and myself. Really, briefly, is this safer,

privacy shield? Does it mean we're safer? The point of this is to raise

the bar, raise the standards, raise the safeguards. You're going to have

greater oversight, greater transparency, that's good for

business and good cord consumers. Thank you very much indeed for

coming N When we hear from the various

hurdles they have to overcome in terms of getting there through, we

will update you. A US judge has cleared the way

for investors to sue the Brazilian oil firm Petrobras over billions

of dollars of losses which allegedly stem from a bribery

and corruption scandal. A judge in New York says two

different sets of investors can pursue the case as a

class action lawsuit. Mexican Grill says sales slumped in

the US. It is the first sales drop since the company went public a

decade ago. Artificial intelligence firm Swift

Key is to be bought by Microsoft. The Financial Times says the deal is

worth $250 million. Swiptkey is known for its predictive keyboard.

It was another grim session for financial markets in Asia. We will

talk about that in a minute. China said its economic growth projection

range between 6.5% and 7%. That's coming from an official at the top

economic planner. That was an announcement that came through

today. Of course, any reminder of some of the challenges facing China

in terms of economic growth puts a shiver down the spine of investors

around the world. It is a story we've talked a lot about and one we

will discuss at length more. Leisa, bring us up-to-date with the

details. It is massive, Ben. We are not talking about the zeros in 43

billion. It worked out at $470. This is the biggest purchase of an

overseas company by the Chinese. It is the second biggest take-over in

the chemical industry. There is consolidation going on in the

sector. But this isn't a done deal. It has to be signed off by

regulators in Europe and the US and they will be looking at this closely

because Chem China will become the biggest supplier of chemicals. A lot

of people are going who is Chem China. Well, it is Government owned.

In March they bought Pirelli, the tyre maker. The bottom line is that

China is betting big on seed and crop technology because after all,

China has to feed the world's biggest population. Thank you very

much. I'm sure it is a firm we will hear more from over the course of

the coming year. One we'll watch closely. Thank you.

The Nikkei is down over 3%. Oil back up on the course of the day, but it

is just shy of $33. Hammering energy firms again and sending stocks

lower. It shows how fickle the equity markets are right now.

Underlying that is the concern over the economic outlook particularly in

China as we have discussed. In Europe, we will get the latest

service sector numbers from Germany today. All expected to remain

robust. In the UK, despite the talk of how unbalanced economic growth

has been, of course, largely based on consumer spending again, today's

service sector figures are expected to show some weakness from December,

but there was a lot of flooding in many parts of the UK and that

stopped people going out to spend. It could be a temporary blip. So

what will move at Wall Street later? Michelle has the details in New

York. Ahead of the big jobs report

on Friday, look out for data on hiring by private employers,

analysts are forecasting a slowdown in January with an estimated

195,000 jobs, compared Meanwhile the flood

of earnings continues. General Motors is expected

to report strong burnings. Executives have already predicted

a strong road ahead. The largest US cable operator

Comcast is expected to impress investors despite facing more

competition from streaming services How well is the owner of Pizza Hut

and Tyco bell doing? When it reports fourth-quarter

results, investors will be interested to see how it's doing

in its home market but also looking for updates on the upcoming spin off

of the Chinese business. Another busy day on Wall Street. Tom

Stephenson is with us. Nice to see you, Tom. Good morning.

So where oil goes, share markets follow, it would seem? Yeah. Equity

markets are obsessed by the oil price at the moment and unusually,

they are moving in the same direction as the oil market because

one argument is that a falling oil price is good news for equities

because it is good for consumers and good for companies. Because their

costs fall. The market is not seeing it that way at the moment. The

market is looking at the oil price and saying it is a reflection of

slowing growth. Sorry, I was interrupting there without

realising. One of the issues that we were talking about earlier is the

fact that people are not spending that money that they have perhaps

got in their pocket because they are not having to pay so much for their

petrol and their gas in their car or their energy bills, they are saving

it, we're all a bit worried? The expectation was as the oil price

fell consumption would rise, we haven't seen that. We may find there

is a delayed reaction of the reason people save the money was because

they were highly indebted after the financial crisis. What we may find

is as household balance sheets come back into order, as people pay down

their debts, they will start to spend more and we're seeing that

with higher car sales for example in the US and in the UK. So it maybe

beginning to come through. Let's touch on the service sector

figures. Just giving us an idea really of the rebalancing that we

talk a lot about, particularly in the UK, but it is true across Europe

in terms of the how the economy will rebalance, away from consumer

spending and away interest the service sector? We need the economy

to rebalance, but in the short-term we people to spend more. It is a

tricky balance and you talk about China earlier on, we saw that. China

is going through this big rebalancing away from investment and

towards consumption and that, actually is a good thing for the

Chinese market. Tom, we will see you soon. Returning in five minutes to

look at other stories at business in the press.

Swiping with your smartphone, we will speak to the the head of one of

the firms providing card readers for smartphones and tablets. That's

designed to help small business take card payments. You're with Business

Live from BBC News. When you use apps, you leave a trail

of data and at the moment there is limits on how the data is used, but

the Institute of Chartered accountants is warning this could

change. They are worried if you don't exercise enough, you could

find yourself with a massive increase in your life insurance

policy. Well, Philippa Kelly is from the Institute of Chartered

accountants and joins us now. Good morning. You might expect that this

is actually a good thing. It is about using technology to make sure

that people who take the right decisions in life are rewarded for

it. Is that not the case? Good morning. Yes, it will be a good

thing for some people as you say, if you make healthy choices and make a

decisions, you are a safe driver, etcetera, you will probably be

rewarded with lower insurance premiums through use of this

additional data we're all generating in our every day lives, but where

someone benefits, there will be someone who is disadvantaged as

well, because insurance has always been about sharing risk and when we

move away from that, there will be people who win and people who lose

and that's what we're considering in the report is where do we need to

intervene to make sure that coverage can be fairly provided if someone is

losing out because of a factor that they can't control?

Explain then what is changing that means that this data at the moment

can't get into the hands of insurance companies could soon get

into their hands? So we are all generating loads of data as you said

throughout our every day lives with Clubcard and with mobile phones and

at the moment, we're happily sharing that da with other organisations. So

your supermarket, your smartphone provider, so if they wanted to, they

could probably be quite well placed to design an insurance product for

you on that basis. So there is the potential for other companies to

enter the insurance market and sell us insurance products using the data

we have given them, but also insurance companies themselves are

looking at more ways that they can start gathering this ta so if you

are part of a company health insurance scheme and your employer

offers you a fit bit, it could be if they get a certain percentage of

employees to wear them, they get a lower premium.

We are out of time. It is fascinating.

Buy to let landlords will be selling 500,000 homes thanks to changes in

legislation. You are watching Business Live. European data should

now be safe. Ridge in the United States after a new sharing agreement

comes into force. It still needs the approval of politicians in Brussels.

It is dull paving the way for a new deal after the old system was deemed

unfit for purpose. -- it is still paving the way.

Now, firms like Paypal might have revolutionised the way we pay

for goods online, but when it comes to face-to-face transactions,

many smaller companies are still using cold hard cash.

But one firm that wants to change that is iZettle.

The Finnish tech firm has come up with a gadget that lets

small businesses take card payments - via apps and card

The company has also recently branched into financing,

offering small loans to their clients.

They now operate in 12 countries, including the Nordics,

UK, Brazil and, most recently, Italy.

It's founder and Chief Executive says the company

is "democratising payments" - letting small firms compete

with their bigger rivals - but is he right?

Well, Chief Executive of iZettle Jacob de Geer is with us.

Thank you for joining us. I have to say, I'm not familiar with your

company or the gadget. I've not seen it but I read about it today and I

thought, gosh, this is great because there are so many small shops I go

into and if I haven't got cash I have to spend ?5 or more in order

for them to do a transaction without them paying fees. If I just need a

pint of milk and I have got no money on me it is quite a problem. It is

and that is just the first problem really. Prior to companies like

iZettle, the chance for these businesses to get access to taking

card payments was pretty slim or complicated at least. With the

business model and the tools that we provide they can get access to

payments but also loans. In a simple way. This is also about offering

payments for people who would not traditionally have a bricks and

mortar store like market traders, craftspeople or a tradesman who

comes to your house, rather than carrying the kit around they can

take a payment with their phone. Yes, for all of those previously

underserved by banks like sole traders. Those businesses typically

account for 20-30% of GDP in a given market. Correct me if I'm wrong, but

iZettle gives readers to homeless magazine sellers. Someone who would

normally have to take cash but you gave it to homeless people to sell

magazines. I assume that is true. It means that greater access to the

system has got to be a good thing? Absolutely. If you look around the

world, cash is on a pretty rapid decline. If you look at any store,

25% of the customers that come in, if they can't pay with a card they

will leave and the same thing goes with street newspaper vendors or.

Access to the card network system and that whole infrastructure is

vital for any type of business. If you are giving them away, which you

are to a great degree to sellers of the Big Issue, how do you make

profits? Banks take a setup fee, monthly these, we have taken that

away, and the only fee is a transaction fee, pay-as-you-go

service, basically. Based on your transaction volume, you pay a

percentage and that goes down the more you sell. Is it competitive

compared to others with a similar service? Absolutely, because these

people typically can't get access to the infrastructure. You touched on a

fact there are others doing the same thing. How difficult is it to stand

out in this market? We like and you to PayPal. One company that changes

the way we do things. It is also a market where the winner takes all

and you want to be dominant and change behaviour and the one that

people turn to. You have competitors and how do you make sure that people

use your service and not others? Well, it's a combination of many

factors from how you sign up and how fast you get access to the card

terminal. We are the first company in the world giving out the

terminals for free. Chip and pin. Typically people charge a lot for

that infrastructure. It's a combination of factors. It could be

anything from data analytics and how customers actually spend money, how

should we mix and match products to maximise your margins? It's a

combination of those things. I will let you in. I want to ask about the

death of cash. How long does cash have left? I imagine you would like

to see cash falling by the wayside eventually? Is a matter of fact I

should not say I don't like cash. And that I want to see the end of

cash, but the fact of the matter is, coming back to privacy and things

you have discussed previously, I think cash is a vital part of our

privacy and I hope that cash will continue on its decline, but I is

dull hope there will be cash in the world so I can buy things that I

don't want anyone else to know about. Like Sally with their pint of

milk. The piggy bank. Is that just my house? Thanks for coming in. Very

interesting. IZettle. Let's take a quick look at the news

that's making headlines The FT leads on the news that Yahoo

will lay off 15% of its workforce as it pursues an "aggressive

strategic plan" to return It is the latest attempt to turn

around the troubled Internet company.

The Huffington Post reports that the CEO of BlackRock wants

companies to stop quarterly earnings estimates.

He says the force investors - and in turn, CEOs -

to focus too much on the short-term gain.

Many of us were able to get through a depressing January by looking at

swimming pools and bowling alleys on property websites. We can't afford

to buy. I thought I saw your house on there. That is the one with the

swimming pool and bowling alley! Tom Lees back to talk about these

stories. -- he is back. We started the programme with a question about

whether you care about what is in food. That breeze says that organic

food is winning, you are what you eat. This is about the Chinese deal.

I knew what you eat? It's terribly important and I buy organic if I

can. Let's talk about Yahoo. This story broke yesterday. Marissa Mayer

is struggling to turn around the fortunes of the company. 15% of the

workforce is going and it's not really working. If you look at

Yahoo, the value is essentially its stake in Alibaba. That is something

they can't really access because of the tax implications. What's

interesting for me about Yahoo's situation for an investor is that it

is a symptom of how business cycles are shortening. It makes investment

very challenging because it's only a few years ago that the Internet

portal was the way forward and that's where Yahoo was so

successful. As people became more familiar with the Internet they

started using it in a different way and Yahoo has struggled to keep up

with those changes. The boss has been there for four years now, she

came from Google and was a star at Google. Just 37, six months pregnant

when she announced she would become the new boss. And Yahoo went through

three bosses in a year. Loads of pressure on her to make this work.

As you have just explained it's a company that really many have moved

on from? It is just up against an unstoppable change in the direction

of how we access information on the Internet. I think you talked about

the churn at the top, and that's often the case when you get

companies which are fundamentally struggling to compete. It's very

difficult for any Chief Executive to come in and make the necessary

changes and she is clearly struggling. Let's talk about

Blackrock next. I like this story. I'm not having much luck with my

technology this morning. This is the Chief Executive who wants companies

to stop quarterly earnings estimates, purely because we are too

focused on the short term and not the long-term. Yes, and it's not

what you expect from the Chief Executive of an investment company,

less information, to be pushing for. There is a self-serving element

because if there is less publicly available information then an

organisation like Blackrock has a competitive advantage but

fundamentally his point is right, companies are obsessed by the

short-term, three cycles of reports and it means they don't make good

long-term gains. Thank you. See you soon. Goodbye.