02/06/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Jamie Robertson

Don't ban Uber and AirBNB - that's the message from Brussels

as European cities crack down on the sharing economy.

Live from London, that's our top story on the 2nd of June.

Be more caring to the sharing - that's the message the European

Commission is poised to deliver today - in a bid to unify the

Also in the programme: Strikes, price wars and security fears.

Worrying times for the global airlines - but the boss of Lufthansa

tells us - passengers have never had it so good.

And most of us have a loyalty card - or three - somewhere in our wallets

- they often give you discounts - but they also give companies

a mine of information about their customers.

We'll be talking to the woman to helped to create the Tesco Clubcard.

Also today we're looking a story about the end of the

Yep, apparently British workers are just too busy

So on that note - we want to know what you do for lunch.

Do you eat lunch Al Fresco or Al Desko?

Let us know - just use the hashtag BBC Biz Live.

Companies like Uber and AirBnb are going to get a set of guidelines

from Europe today - telling them how they can be regulated.

And it's thought governments are going to be told - let them be.

That's not the way things have been going though.

Last month, Berlin started one of the toughest crackdowns

on AirBnb fining landlords without holiday permits.

Uber has also had its fair share of problems in Europe -

angry taxi drivers in France, Spain, Brussels and the UK

have all held protests against the ride-sharing app.

As well as a high profile raid on its offices in Paris last year.

Later this year, the European Court of Justice is due to rule

on whether Uber is just a digital service or instead a transport

company - which could mean it faces more regulation.

But the rise of the so-called sharing economy seems relentless.

By 2025, accountants PWC reckons the global market will be over

$335 billion from just 15 billion only two years ago.

That is a big increase. Let's stay with this story.

Debbie Wosskow, chair of Sharing Economy UK -

the UK's own sharing economy trade body.

She's also the founder of Love Home Swap, itself

Debbie, great to have you won the programme. Let's start with this

European Commission report. It could end up being a law, I guess? This is

great news for the consumer. The only thing I can think of is Europe

has got a tough job. It has got to convince industries, everything from

taxis to hotels? The key thing about this report, which has not yet been

released, says it is great news for the consumer because what it

provides is standardisation across 28 European countries. What you have

seen to date is very different treatment of sharing economy

platforms. You have France where Uber executives have been threatened

with jail. You have Berlin where AirBnb hosts, ordinary people

renting out their home or a room for a few days a year, have been

threatened with a 100,000 euros fine. This creates enormous

uncertainty in the minds of the consumer. What can they do? We do a

lot of stories where we talk about regulation. The European Court of

Justice is going to make a decision whether Uber is a tech company or a

transport company. Regulation always seems to be behind, technology goes

forward and regulation is back here. I think it is consecrated because of

the rate of change. The important thing about the sharing economy is

it allows ordinary people to make money and save money from the assets

the own and the skills they have. The great thing about our feeling

about what this report today will say is it makes that easier for the

consumer. But surely you have a problem where you have the growth in

an industry like this, and you don't have the regulation for the taxi

drivers, for people taking out an apartment in a city or whatever.

Places have got to come up to certain standards. Shouldn't you be

enforcing that in some way? Many of these sharing operations skip around

those red relations? I think one of the points from the report which is

interesting, and I would predict is a topic for the discussion to come,

is the status of the work on the sharing economy platform. Are they

employed by the platform, or are they completely independent as a

contractor. We have talked about Uber a lot, but this applies to a

lot of sharing economy businesses like companies delivering takeaway

is, and people providing services like cleaning in the home. Are those

people self-employed or are they employed? That has a huge impact on

not just how the platform pays tax, but also things like health and

safety. There is no solution there? I think it is complicated.

I would absolutely put the UK at the forefront of this conversation. We

have set up sharing economy UK, but we also the first company in

the world to develop an independent trust We will help people be more

confident that they will be treated in a uniform way. Thank you.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has rejected suggestions OPEC

would agree a production cap at its meeting in Vienna,

saying "An output ceiling has no benefit to us".

Tehran, which only recently returned to world oil markets after Western

sanctions were lifted, has opposed any attempt to limit

The taxi app Uber has attracted a $3.5 billion dollar investment

from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

The new money values the company at more than 62 billion dollars.

The money will help it to expand in the Middle East,

where the company says 80% of its users in Saudi Arabia

are women - who are banned from driving themselves in the country.

The European Central Bank is expected to raise growth

and inflation forecasts when it meets later.

But it's widely predicted to leave interest rates on hold and make no

change to its massive economic stimulus policies.

Perhaps no surprises there? I want to take a look at this. In Dublin,

all the big bosses of the global aviation industry... This is your

area. I love it! Ryanair is the largest carrier in Europe by

passenger numbers. It continues to grow but later in the programme, we

will hear from the big boss of Lufthansa. That is your's biggest

airline by revenue. He will talk about security. He says passengers,

you have never had a better? We will do that in a little bit.

Keep control! Now we've heard about Saudi Arabia

investing in Uber, it seems Singapore's sovereign wealth fund

has also been splashing the cash. It's bought a billion dollars

of shares in the Chinese Sharanjit Leyl is in

Singapore for us. This is really interesting. There

are quite a few New York hedge funds betting against Alibaba saying it

will go even lower, even weaker, if you will? They are betting against

that idea. These two Singapore funds have snapped up $1 billion of shares

in this Chinese e-commerce firm. Japan's Softbank which is Alibaba's

biggest shareholder, is selling off its stake in the firm to pay off its

own debts. It will continue as Alibaba's largest shareholder. Two

funds purchased $1 million worth of Alibaba's shares. They confirmed the

transaction and declined to comment further. Alibaba purchased 2 billion

stock from one of the funds. Senior executives purchased $400 million

worth. They seem to be a lot of opportunities for other firms

bidding to get a chunk of that as Softbank sells off a stake. Thank

you. Let's have a look at the markets.

The Nikkei is down. There is discussion about delaying a sales

tax which should strengthen the market. Since Monday, we have seen

the pound fall by 2 cents against the dollar. You can see the FTSE

moving up quarter of 1%. Not a huge amount of change there. Tomorrow, we

have got from the US jobs data. I think the markets are waiting to see

what happens there. Michelle Fleury has more about what is ahead on Wall

Street today. Friday's jobs report looms large. On

Thursday, investors will get a foretaste with a release of the

National employment report. It will probably show American companies

took on more staff in May. Private companies are expected to have hired

175,000 employees last month. Separately, Challenger Gray and

Christmas will release its report on lay-offs. The federal bank's report

known as the beige book, is already pointing to a tightening jobs

market. Fed official save the economy continues to improve, it may

soon be time for a rate hike. Chairwoman Janet Leyland said last

week, probably in the coming months such a move would be appropriate #

Janet Yellin. Let's stay with some market stories.

Laurence Gosling is a familiar face. Can we use this section to talk the

Opec meeting? Nothing will happen in Vienna today. I heard on my earlier

programmes this morning, some oil experts saying this rise, it is

around 50 bucks at the moment, it was $27 in January, this rise in the

price of oil, some will say it is a temporary blip, it has been causing

disruptions in Nigeria, Canada etc. Do you think it is a temporary blip?

No, I do. I think we are on a sustained rise. We are not going to

go back to $100. I think we will get $70 a barrel by the end of the year.

Mainly because I think the outlook for the global economy is better

than we thought it was in January. But there are other factors keeping

the price down. Iran is coming on stream but also there is shale gas

in the background. It is very cheap now to start up those new

operations. As soon as the price gets to a certain level, or it will

bring in supply? It is not so easy to turn these taps on in the US as

people suggest. A lot of them have closed down because the price has

dropped. For them to come back, it will require some positive US data.

I think it is more to do with the politics, the Saudi versus Iran

which has been playing out. But ultimately, the world economy,

particularly China looks healthier than it did. In a word, Opec, still

relevant? Less relevant than it used to be. You will come back and talk

through the papers. Thank you. They can often give you discounts,

but they also give companies a treasure trove of information

about their customers. We'll be talking to the woman

who helped to create You're with Business

Live from BBC News. The fate of the collapsed high

street retailer BHS is expected The company went into

administration in April, just a year after it was sold

by Sir Philip Green for ?1. The company's 11,000 staff

will learn whether it will be Rob Young is in our

Business newsroom. The fate of BHS is on a knife edge

this morning. Sources close to it so they anticipated a decision will be

made at some point today, whether to sell the retailer to a new owner, or

whether to begin the process of winding it up. Potential buyers have

come and gone in recent weeks, and it was thought there is only one

serious buyer left in this process, and we were told yesterday that

they'd needed refining, and a decision was likely to be made

today. This has been an anxious time for the 11,000 workers at BHS whose

jobs hang in the balance. Just briefly, what went wrong? Retail

analysts say it was a retailer that failed to keep up with fashion

trends, it was regarded as a bit out of date, and experts say that if the

company is bought, it needs serious amounts of money to be able to turn

it around, but if there isn't a buyer, this would be the biggest

failure on the high street since Woolworths back in 2008. Rob Young,

thank you for joining us. We will talk to again tomorrow. Let's have a

look and see what is happening on BBC Business Live. This is all about

the Premier League, it is way ahead of everybody else in terms of

finances, 92 clubs earned ?4 billion last season. We knew this was on the

cards. Is this all foreign investment, Lauren was saying it was

a lot to do with Chinese investment. It is from all over the world. And

Leicester is Thai, isn't it. I don't follow football. In

Australia, we kicks a ball, but then we pick it up and run with it, too.

Very confusing. Our top story - be more

caring to the sharing. That's the message the European

Commission is poised to deliver today in a bid to unify the approach

to services like Uber and AirBNB Most of us have got a loyalty card

stashed somewhere in our wallets. The same cards that also provide

companies with a treasure trove One of those cards we're talking

about is the Tesco Clubcard. It was introduced in 1995,

became a runaway success and helped the company leapfrog its competitor

Sainsbury's in the late 1990s. The loyalty card scheme was created

by Edwina Dunn and her mathematician husband for a fraction

of the cost of rival bids. I say mathematician advisedly,

because that will become important in a second.

She's now the chief executive of Starcount, which uses social

media and financial data to try and help companies better

And we have got her in the studio! Great to have you with us. Can I

start with this, cause you mentioned about the science. I have a Tesco

Clubcard, most people probably have one, and I get e-mails saying, this

is on sale, this is good, they are products I have purchased in the

past. So I blame you and your husband for that! You came up with

the science behind this. When was that eureka moment? I don't think

there had ever been data quite as rich as this before. People talk

about big data, and every body thinks their data is valuable, and

mostly it isn't. It is mostly things that don't translate to economic

indicators, but what turned out was that how we shop is probably one of

the most important economic indicators we have in our armoury

today, because we can tell when the increased the size of the basket, we

can tell when students come back home, we can tell when people lose

their jobs. It is a really powerful indicator. But you say you are

moving on away from just looking at what they buy but how they behave on

social media, so you are looking at more in-depth view of how we behave.

There are very few things that are predicted from what we bought

before. But, serial, milk, we bought them last week, we buy them this

week, but if you buy a car, travel, a luxury item, what you bought

before is not a predictor of what you are going to buy. So what we are

looking at now, used to beat you are what you eat, now it is you are what

you love. We are looking at the persona of what it is you are

passionate about, and that becomes a forecast of future intent. And is it

the same science that you started back then? It isn't, interestingly.

That is a really good question, because the maths we are using now

is all about networks and connectivity. So it is who is

connected to who. We are looking at the science of leaders and

followers, because it is who you follow that is defining who you are.

It is a bit creepy. The leaders are public entities. What we follow, the

really shocking news is we have looked at girls and boys, and what

they follow. Boys have quite a diverse portfolio of what they

follow. The shocking thing about girls is on the whole, they follow

celebrity and fashion exclusively. Much more narrow-minded, in a way.

This will get me e-mails! This is the shocking truth. It is narrow,

and actually, one of the things that I have found from this data is that

maybe girls don't have enough role models, and it is another thing that

I am really into. Easier to sell to them, then? It is easier to know

what they're looking at, which is celebrity in fashion, and those are

connected. There is always talk about the danger of our information

being in the wrong hands. What is your take on the privacy laws? The

great thing about leaders on social media is that they can't really get

there unless they have 10,000 followers, so they are brands and

public entities. They want to be seen and heard, so it is public

data. I just pipped 10,000 followers, so that means I'm a

public entity in my information can be out there? Is it easy to get the

information? It is easy to get the data, and we know who is crazy about

you and who is crazy about you and we can understand not only that they

like you but what else they like... You are scaring the bid Jesus out of

me! Thank you very much for coming in.

Come on, James. Now, this Thursday, all the top

airline bosses are in Dublin for the annual meeting

of their trade body IATA, the International Air

Transport Association. We've been talking to Carsten Spohr,

the boss of Europe's He says the airline industry

is constantly putting all efforts It is important to state that flying

is and remains the safest way of transport. It has been, and with all

the ongoing efforts to increase safety even further, it will be in

the future, so even though we have had unfortunate incidents in the

last month, historically flying is as safe as ever before, and I have

not visited one meeting at this conference where we don't touch on

safety. It is the number one, surely for Lufthansa and I think for the

whole industry. Aaron is desperately try to find something. Boozy lunches

are over. I thought they had been over four years. You can't afford to

because your boss won't sign off your expenses the way they did. Does

it make a difference to the way we do business? No, because lunch has

been replaced by breakfast. Boozy breakfasts? No, sober breakfasts,

and short ones. And do we see people having their lunch al desko? You

don't have time to go for a big lunch in the middle of the day.

Definitely boozy lunches are over. In the Scandinavian countries, it is

highly publicised, I used to live in Copenhagen, they would make sure

that you had a break and go to the canteen, because it was healthy for

the mind. This story from Vancouver, it says house owners made more

sitting on their assets than the entire population did working last

year. Is this a surprise or story anywhere on the globe now? A lot of

major cities, London is a great example, a single family home has

been rising in price and value, because there is so much demand.

But what does it mean about where money is? It isn't going to

investment and business. It shows that there are what economists call

asset bubbles, and a lot of wealth is in real estate, because it is a

safe place in people's minds to put the money, because it is safer than

the bank or stock market. They are not getting the returns from the

bank, because interest rates are so low. How long do we have? That it!

We will see you soon, Lawrence. There will be more business news

throughout the day on the BBC Live web page and on World Business

Report. We will be back here, I will be back

in two hours. He is off. We will see you tomorrow!

Most of us can look forward to some fine weather come the weekend.