29/02/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Victoria Fritz

India's finance minister makes some very ambitious promises,

but will it boost the Indian economy

that's our top story on Monday 29th February.

It was a populist budget to boost farmers -

but what was in there for businesses?

It's a strategy shift that could boost India's ruling party

in coming state elections, but will it disappoint investors?

Also in the programme: Millions of workers in China are set

to lose their jobs - a high price to pay

Also we'll bring you all the very latest from the markets,

Plus, would you put your money in a bank with no branches,

Well, the latest breed of challenger banks,

as they're known, promise to disrupt the world

We ask the boss of one new app bank just how.

And do tell us what you think about the stories we're covering today.

To join in the debate, just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

India is enjoying its economic status.

It's overtaking China to become the world's

This morning, the finance minister, Arun Jaitley,

It's a populist plan to boost farming aid

But 2016 is a year of reckoning, let's take a look why.

Mr Jaitley says his economy would grow by 7.6 percent

The IMF predicts growth of 7.5% for 2016 to 2017.

But some economists doubt India will achieve that.

And to hit growth targets, Mr Jaitley may have

deficit to 3.5% of GDP in the coming financial year.

The government has struggled to get reforms on tax,

labour and land acquisition past the opposition -

all vital to make India more prosperous.

more to create jobs for the 1 million young Indians who join

Victoria was outlining some of the ambitious plans of this current

government. Tell us more about what was in the budget? The government

recognises that the rural economy has been under stress for two years

because there has been less than sufficient rainfall during the

monsoon season, and that is something they have tried to fix in

this budget. One of their aims is to double farm incomes by 2020. They

have also talked about spending more on infrastructure and bailing out

state-owned banks. I have with me the leader of direct access BMR

advisers. What did you think of the budget? I think it was a sensible

budget. The finance minister reassured us on the macroeconomic

stability for India and made sure we are spending right and earning

right. But was there enough in that for business? The government

promised to ease businesses in India. I think he made a good

commitment. He talked about the bankruptcy code being brought in. He

talked about the first cuts which are taking place taxes. And

importantly, he is trying to bury the ghost of Vodafone and other

indirect transfers that has been troubling India since the

retrospective tax came in. So he is putting a framework out there to

have reconciliation and closure to that issue. In India, it is a lot

about making promises, but are they being delivered? Do you think there

is enough in that budget to keep the economy growing at more than 7% in

the next year? If you look at how much he is planning to spend on

roads, railways and airports, he is also talking about recapitalisation

of the banks, which is important. I think it is a sensible package,

which should keep us on a growth trajectory. They have talked a lot

about spending money on the infrastructure and trying to help

start-ups by giving them tax incentives. That is a lot of

spending. Did you hear enough about how they will make money? On the

making of money, he has shied away from trying to increase tax rates,

especially indirect tax rates. So there is concern about that. He has

also made it clear that he has to stick to fiscal deficit targets that

have been set for him. So he is confident that there will be

sufficient buoyancy in the economy and sufficient headroom on tax

collections. And let's not forget, here's hoping that the oil subsidy

burden continues to work in his favour. That was something they had

not counted on in the year past and in the year coming ahead, that if

oil prices remain low, that will be a big boost for India. Thank you for

now. Yogita will be tweeting and posting throughout the day.

Finance ministers from the world's leading economies met at the G20

Few concrete measures emerged from the meeting,

but policymakers agreed that ultra-low interest rates were not

enough to bring the global economy out of its slump.

Industrial production in Japan has risen for the first time in three

months, according to the latest government data.

Manufacturing output rose 3.7% in January,

but the statistics pointed to weakness in the Japanese retail

We have some news out of Germany. Speaking of retail, these are retail

sales figures coming out of Germany, helping grow expectations about how

the economy is going to do. It is Europe's largest economy and we have

seen exports slow, so there has been concern as to where the driver of

growth will come from. It is something we are seeing across the

Eurozone. In Germany, retail sales grew by 0.7% month on month in

January. We will discuss those issues later.

China's economy is back in the spotlight.

It expects to lay off millions of workers in the coal and steel

sectors to tackle massive industrial oversupply.

This comes as the G20 finance ministers and central bankers

promise to do more to revive the global economy -

Let's start with what is going on with China, and announcements that

we will see massive job cuts. It is a huge price to pay. It is a huge

price to pay. The numbers we saw today were the first time we got

specific numbers from China's government. It is reported that they

will lay off around 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel

sectors. There is no time frame for that, but that is as China tries to

cut back on oversupply in its industrial sectors. You talked about

the G20. The finance ministers met in Shanghai. They promise to do

more, when it comes to China, it was not a convincing cell for investors.

Today, Shanghai dropped nearly 3%. Earlier in the day, it hit a 15

month low, which is saying something for Shanghai. So while we did not

expect the G20 to boost markets, there was a distinct lack of any

detail that might have given some confidence about future growth.

Chinese bourses made a sour start to the week.

The lack of any real good news from the G20 meeting means we're

seeing more volatility, more investors looking to safer

So the traditional safe havens of gold and the yen are stronger.

This is how the week is opening up across Europe.

Let's hear from Michelle Fleury aout what will be making

It is a busy week ahead, even with fourth-quarter earnings

The campaigns are moving into high gear as the focus

of the US presidential election turns to Super Tuesday.

That is the day in the election cycle when Democrats and Republicans

hold the most primary votes on one day.

For economists, some more traditional

fare in the shape of the latest manufacturing data for February.

The strong dollar, low commodity prices

and weak demand continue to weigh on the sector.

And still hungry for another glimpse of the health of the US economy?

Well, you won't have to wait too long.

The other big economic report this week is this

The numbers are expected to show more hiring gains,

while the pace of hourly wage growth may slow slightly.

Joining us is James Hughes, Chief Market Analyst at the trading

The markets are going down. Your thoughts? We are not seeing anything

that positive this morning. Again, we are looking at what happened on

Friday. Although there were positive numbers on Friday, with GDP readings

that were OK, it is Asia yet again that is dragging us lower. We have

the same story, China off heavily. And when that happens, we get that

risk. Do you think there is disappointment that central bankers

did not come up with some corporate idea to boost the global economy?

The G20 is usually a very political thing, even when it is finance

ministers meeting. It all tends to be a lot of hot air. We always build

ourselves up and say we could see something, and then we are surprised

when nothing happens. That then drags the markets down a bit.

Speaking of more concrete things, we have data on the Eurozone coming out

in an hour. How important will that be as a signal for stimulus measures

we might see next month's the inflation figure is always key,

especially for the Eurozone, because we have all these measures being put

in by Mario Draghi which are not showing any signs of life. We want

to see growth moving back to positives. What is in place at the

moment is not working, so it looks like we will have to wait for yet

another meeting to pile more stimulus into the economy to see if

it works. James, we will see you later.

Still to come...Appy banking - managing your money

We ask the boss of a branchless-bank and ask is the technology trusted

enough to ditch the good old bank branch?

You're with Business Live from BBC News.

Let's look at a story that is ringing alarm bells this morning.

Almost a million jobs could be lost in Britain's retail sector by 2025.

Millions of us are buying online and some are steering clear of high

streets and that will have a major impact on retail jobs,

according to the British Retail consortium.

Tell us more about this story? There are a lot of people employed in the

retail sector in the UK, around 3 million. 70% of all spending in the

UK economy is on consumption. So shopping and retail really matters.

The British Retail Consortium, which represents the big supermarkets and

a lot of the shops we see on the British high street have put out a

warning that nearly 900,000 jobs could go over the next decade if

there is some sort of change to the current trend. As you were saying,

people are shopping online, which means they are not going into town

to buy their goods. That will affect the high street sales. But add in

the national living wage, the rebranded minimum wage, introduced

by Chancellor George Osborne last year. He will raise it to ?7.20 from

April. By 2020, it will be ?9 per hour. A lot of people that work in

the retail sector depend on the minimum wage. The PRC, the British

Retail Consortium, say London is already paying at least that -- the

PRC. But in more regional parts of the country, it will have a

devastating impact, especially in Wales and the north of England,

which depend on the national living wage. They cannot afford possibly to

pay the ?9 per hour which will be the government minimum by 2020. So

they say it will have a regional impact unless we look at how we do

things. But the trend towards online shopping is irreversible. The

question is, how do guys on the high street manage? Joke, thank you very

much. This is tied in with that story. It is a Morrisons tie-up with

Amazon to give it a firmer foothold in the grocery market. We know that

Amazon has designs on the UK market here. It will of course be a big

warning to the big online grocers. Amazon really does mean business. It

will be interesting to see what happens with the share price of the

supermarkets today. Their food delivery business at the moment is

called Amazon Pantry. I imagine the tie-up with Morrisons will be a

different offering. You're watching Business

Live, our top story - Arun Jaitley, unveiled

a populist budget to help He promised to spread the benefits

of growth among India's But will India's wider economy

and its business community benefit Now let's get the Inside Track

on the banking sector. After the financial crisis,

while many of the traditional lenders were busy rebuilding

their businesses, a new breed of so-called "challenger banks"

had started to emerge. Several of these newer start-ups

rely on technology as opposed to traditional "bricks-and-mortar"

branch networks. Mondo is one such business that aims

to change the way the public carries Assuming the business is authorized

and fully operational, it will have no branches,

Mondo will be an app-based bank But similar to traditional banks,

it will offer a current account So far the company has raised

?7 million, that's $8.8 million. Joining me is Tom Blomfield,

Chief Executive of Mondo. This is really a company in its

infancy in the sense it is not authorised yet, but you do have bank

cards. Tell us where you are at? We celebrated our first birthday last

month. We have built our systems, going through the authorisation

process, the UK regulators, one thing we wanted to do differently

was involve our customers in the development of the bank. We have had

life MasterCard is odd since November, we just had ?1 million

spent with our cards and today we are announcing a crowdfunding

campaign to let people invest in the bank. If you have the infrastructure

in the traditional way, what happens if a customer has problems? They use

their phone, they lose their cloud? What if they think there is fraud on

their account? What if they want advice? Modern technology allows you

to solve these problems seamlessly. If you lose your cloud, you can open

the alp and top to freeze your cloud. If you find it down the side

of the sofa, you can unfreeze it. Sometimes if you need to talk to

someone, there will be a phone line. What if you lose your phone? We

consider them the remote controls for our lives, but it is a rain

problem if you lose them and even more so if your financial

information and biking is done through one device? Worst case, you

have your phone and called a stolen at once, there are emergency phone

lines printed on the cloud, on the website. You can fold up and get it

shut down. The mobile presents an opportunity to take a leap forward

in terms of security. Every time I go abroad with my bank, by cloud

gets blocked. My phone is in my pocket so they know I am in New

York. What are they not more intelligent with that data? Current

accounts are provided, overdraft facilities, is that it? Yes, that is

it. We will not offer other products. You could not get a

mortgage. We think that is for the best. We have these mixed incentives

as a bike, you try to acquire customers very young and then they

have the concept of customer ownership, they try to sell your

product and it is rare that your bank is offering the best product.

Our bank is more like an app store. You can get the best choice from

across the market. You are appealing to the savvy customer, someone who

is very confident about the decisions they make. If you purchase

through choices at them about mortgage choices, they would be able

to make that decision without handholding. We are appealing to

customers who lived through their smartphones. We can present

information at the relevant time, in the right context, to enable people

to make their choices. Maybe there are two or three options and this

might be the best one for you. Lots of the bigger banks are in the

online space. They are offering this sort of service. What is it you are

offering that is different? Also, tied in with that, how do you manage

the data? If you are a big bag, you have the people and the

infrastructure in place to deal with major breaches of security, you will

not have that. I think tanks have websites and have apps, but they are

a way for the banks to deliver a statement in a low-cost way. It is

the same list of payments delivered on a smartphone. That is it. Really,

the service they provide has not changed in 30 or 40 years. They see

the mobile as a lower cost way to deliver your statement. Mobile

banking is broader than that. People don't care about their bank, they

care about their money. It is not just your current account, it is

your discount and loyalty data. It is your entire financial life. In

terms of security. We have talked about data breaches, but there is

the issue of your sustainability is the company to get your physician

you have got to have money on your balance sheet, you need big capital

base which other banks have. The authorisation process is robust, I

would say. For a good reason. Taking deposits and landing that money out

is a great responsibility that we take seriously. In terms of

security, data security and capital, that is something we have spent time

with regulators and we will have two raise up to ?20 million to dodge the

bag. We appreciate you coming in. -- launch later this year.

Let's look at what is being talked about on their website. We have the

German retail sales, but there is more about China and its news on the

1.8 million workers likely to be laid off in the coal and steel

industry come interesting given we are seeing a similar story in the

UK. We are seeing a lot of expectation here that the whole

European industry is going through death throes as a result of what is

called the dumping of steam, Chinese steel, on the market. It is being

set on the market at prices lower than it cost to produce. It shows

that we are having similar problems in China as well. That contraction

in the global market and the global slowdown is having a rain impact.

Consumers want and the banking, this is one viewer, it is just a matter

of time before all banks turn to this trend. Physical banks are

becoming outdated. In a moment, we will go through the business pages.

First, here is a reminder of how to stay in touch. The business live

page is where you can stay ahead of the braking business news. We will

keep you up-to-date with insight and analysis from the team of editors at

the BBC, right around the world. We want to hear from you. Get involved

on our web page. What other business stories has

the media been taking James Hughes, Chief Market Analyst

at the trading brokerage GKFX, Shall we start with the Wall street

journal? Missed the oil storage problems. The US have come up with a

solution. Empty railcars, sitting on railway tracks which will be filled

up with Wayne because no one is buying it. That is the issue. We

have a global glut of oil. Prices are at record lows and are not

looking to go anywhere else. The issue we have in the US is where

they are going to put it. The ingenious answer is these rain cars.

There are worries. There is potential collisions which we do not

often think about and leaky railcars and things like this. Interestingly,

there are a lot of people who own railcars who are going to the big

oil companies and saying, you have a lot of oil and nowhere to put it,

stick it in my car. If you have a spare place to store oil, get in

touch. We talked about the G2 at the meeting. Finance ministers and

central bankers there. Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of

England, he is talking about his thoughts, coincidentally he has a

book out, he says the Eurozone is doomed. Do you agree? I have bashed

the Eurozone for quite a long time. I do not necessarily agree it is

doomed, but it does not look rosy. What Mervyn King says is right. He

says that the only way for a of these countries, like Greece and

Cyprus, countries who really struggled to get back to solvency

and growth is to leave the Eurozone and come back to it. He talks about

a relegation system where you can get relegated from the Eurozone and

you are financially stable again and then get promoted back into it.

There are a lot of countries who still want to get into the Eurozone

and use the single currency. We have been talking about the rebirth of

the gas guzzler since oil prices started to sink. You go from years

and years of electric cars to, because when prices are so low, we

go back to regular cars. Thank you so much.

There will be more business news throughout the day on the BBC Live

webpage and on World Business Report.