15/06/2017 BBC Business Live

Philip Hammond is also expected to use his annual speech

to the City of London to guarantee billions of dollars

of EU spending on infrastructure projects.

Also in the programme, the United States raises interest

With the Bank of England meeting today,

And with lots for investors to digest this Thursday,

we'll run you through what's moving the numbers and why.

Hello, you heard Ben but you are seeing me!

Security at your fingertips - we'll meet the man who says

the key to online safety could be in your own hands.

And as digital video sales could overtake DVD

We want to know, do you still buy your movies on disc?

Sally Hodkin the limelight, I don't know! Welcome to the programme.

It's less than a week since the UK woke up to an election result

that plunged it into even deeper political and economic uncertainty.

Prime Minister Theresa May still hasn't finalised an agreement

with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party which would allow her

But away from those talks, the pressure is mounting

on the Government to lay out a strategy for Brexit negotiations.

Tonight the Chancellor, or finance minister, Philip Hammond,

could give us some idea of what is planned.

He's expected to say that $61bn of funds from the

European Union's investment bank will not be put at risk.

It currently provides funding for major infrastructure projects

across the EU, including here in the UK

for the Crossrail train line in London,

and tram networks in Nottingham and Manchester.

He's also expected to signal there may be some room to negotiate

when it comes to keeping the country in the EU's customs union.

Staying in that union would allow businesses

to continue their existing two-way relationship

And that's vital because the EU is the UK's biggest export market.

Morning. Good morning, Sally. You have blogged about this, quite a

change in tone coming from the UK, how is this likely to go down in the

EU? Well, the EU will probably welcome this. The Chancellor in the

UK, Philip Hammond, is close to Wolfgang Schaeuble, the fine and

minister in Germany, and both sides of the fence on Brexit want a good

deal for the economy, and I think the worry in the UK has been, up

until the general election, as Ben said, when Theresa May was somewhat

weakened in a position in Britain, taking back control, sovereignty,

immigration will be the leading issues around Brexit. Philip

Hammond, I think, supported by Germany and France, once the

economy, jobs, business at the centre of the negotiations, which

some describe us as going towards a softer Brexit. Mist Hammond, in

Britain, does want a more porous relationship with the single market,

the possibility at least of some form of membership of the customs

union, although that is very complicated, and today he has sent a

big signal to businesses in the UK that the Government will stand

behind the European Investment Bank's investments in Britain. Some

people thought it was at risk because of our departure from the

EU. The EIB does fund projects outside of the EU, but 90% of the

funding is for member states, and there is a fear that the funding

could dry up in Britain. So presumably business leaders welcome

this news, some breathing a sigh of relief, in fact! It is a small step,

but a change of tone. Business as largely felt to have been locked out

of any approach to Brexit in the UK. I think now they hope there will be

a change of tone, I think the speech tonight will reveal something of

that change, if the EIB announcement reveals the first steps on that.

What does this say about the Chancellor and the Prime Minister,

and where they are both that? Because she has been quite different

in her stance, until the general election - I will be a bloody

difficult woman to deal with, looking at no dealers better than a

bad deal, all that rhetoric. It is a very different message from these

two Keely does. She is treading a very difficult line. -- two key

leaders. Others would argue for a clean Brexit, what some would

describe as a hard Brexit, Liam Fox for example, the Cabinet minister

responsible for international trade. He wants Britain to be able to sign

strong deals with countries like China, India and America. If we are

in the customs union, that could curtail Britain's ability to do that

type of deal. She has got Liam Fox, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, who are

all pushing towards a clean Brexit. She has to balance those two things,

and that is the difficulty she finds herself in. Also, she does not have

the majority in the house of parliament. The EU know that, and

that has put more power, many people think, in the EU's hands, rather

than Britain's hands. We will see if we get that clarity later tonight,

we will be watching and listening, thank you.

Let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news.

The Chinese regulators have fined Emirates for two safety incidents

that took place over the western region of Xinjing.

The Gulf carrier was fined just over $4,000 and

banned from adding new routes or aircraft in China for six months.

China's Civil Aviation Administration says Emirates pilots

were found to have flown an aircraft at the wrong altitude

and temporarily lost contact with air-traffic control.

The International Civil Aviation Agency says it's reviewing

a request from Qatar to intervene in the dispute with its

Gulf neighbours after they closed their airspace to Qatari flights.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt

have cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar,

accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Volkswagen says it will offer a two-year guarantee on cars that

were modified to remove a device designed to cheat emissions tests.

say the modifications affect performance and reliability.

The European Commission has been putting pressure on VW

to compensate customers over the scandal,

as they have done in the US, but the company has so far refused.

To Asia now, on what was supposed to be a big day

for struggling Japanese tech giant Toshiba.

It was due to announce who will buy its memory-chip unit.

Toshiba's been forced to sell off the business to raise money

and the near-collapse of its US nuclear division.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes is in Tokyo with the details.

Rupert, talk us through this massive obstacle for Toshiba to go ahead

with the sale of the chip unit. Yes, Sally, getting increasingly

complicated. What was already a congregated story now has another

spanner in the works because Western Digital, a large US corporation that

makes computer memory and has a large joint venture with Toshiba in

Japan, that company's management has filed a court action in California

to block the sale of Toshiba's flash memory division. Toshiba say it is

still hoping to go air and and announce a preferred for that

division by its meeting at the end of this month. -- to go ahead. But

it now faces a legal obstacle because of this injunction filed by

Western Digital. Western Digital had already filed for arbitration, a

process that could take, I understand, up to two years, but

Toshiba wants to make this sale quickly, get it over and done with

as soon as possible, because it wants to pay off it's debt to the

United States, so it does not want to go through this process, but this

looks like another big barrier to them going out and selling that

memory division. A story that will run and run, Rupert, for now, thank

you very much, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo for you.

Staying in Japan, the stock market fell in pretty volatile trade

overshadowed the rise in interest rates

Also worries over those reports

that US President Donald Trump is being investigated for possible

In Hong Kong, authorities raised its base rate by 25 basis points -

In the UK, confirmation yesterday that wages

are lagging way behind inflation, so a further squeeze on incomes.

well below the inflation rate of 2.7% for that month.

In 45 minutes, we get the latest UK retail-sales figures for last month,

and at midday a decision on interest rates.

No change expected, with rates already at record lows of 0.25%,

given the looming uncertainty politically and economically.

More on that shortly, but first in the US,

has Samira has a look at the day ahead for US markets.

On Thursday, the chief executive of United Airlines

Oliver Munoz has had to grapple with some high-profile

public-relations fiascoes in the last few months,

including the forceful removal of a paying customer

Well, that incident prompted an industrywide conversation

on customer service and passenger rights.

In earnings news, Kroger will be reporting first-quarter results.

Now, the supermarket operator warned back in March that full-year

sales could fall by 1%, and that is because competition

Walmart continues to beef up its grocery offerings,

and new entrants, like German grocery chain Aldi,

are racing to offer the lowest possible prices.

That was Samira in New York for us. We have got Mike Amey, a managing

director and portfolio manager at Pimco, nice to see you. Let's start

by talking about the UK, because the Bank of England has got its meeting,

Mark Carney has not spoken for a month publicly, and a lot has

happened since he last met with his team. That is right, there has

obviously been the election result, quite a lot of political uncertainty

out there, and some of the data has been more mixed in the UK as well,

some of the activity data has been lower than expected, and

unfortunately inflation has been higher, so what they will tell us

that they don't really know, there is a lot of uncertainty out there, I

think their preference is to do nothing, to wait and see how things

develop. A lot of people saying that the UK economy needs attention now,

you know? Well, it has slowed, and as Benjamin Micra mentioned, there

is this challenge, we are all feeling the squeeze on wages. So

that is quite a challenge. The view is that the economy needs support.

Interesting in light of the squeeze on incomes, inflation rising more

than wages, we will get retail sales figures, and they are backward

looking, retrospective, but it will give us an idea of what is happening

in that predicted slowdown. That is right, retail sales have been

slowing for a while now, the volume of retail sales spending growing at

about 2% a year, having been running at 3-4%. So you are seeing in the

data the fact that people are feeling the squeeze. A quick word on

the US Federal Reserve, delivering what most people predicted, but

interesting that it will start getting the US economy of the drip

of quantitative easing. Indeed, that is better news, the US is ahead of

us in the cycle, and they are saying is on reducing the amount of money

they pumped into the system, so they cut interest rates previously,

printing money, and now the message is a bit more positive. Thank you,

Mike, we shall see later, have a think about the last DVD you bought!

Lots of comments from you about the seal of DVD sales expecting to fall

significantly in the next few yes. Contrasting that with streaming

services, more of us streaming movies, downloading, not buying

physical DVDs, keep your comments coming.

keeping you safe online, without passwords or fingerprints.

We'll meet the man who says his firm can detect whether

just by how you use your smartphone or keyboard.

It is pretty clever stuff, we will talk about that a little later!

You're with Business Live from BBC News.

It might be too early for a glass of frying, pens, maybe you think it is

the right time! Majestic is porting about how well it has done. ?1.5

million of losses. -- it might be too early for a glass of wine,

dependence. -- depends. What we can speak with you about this

interesting set of figures, direct marketing in the US, last year, tell

us about this year, are things looking up? Things are looking up,

the second half tells the story, profits up 51%, you mentioned the

profits for the year, reported accounting profits are showing a

loss. The key reason for that, there is a big purchase of naked wines,

which is an asset that is appreciating in value. -- Naked

Wines. Look at the operating profit level, they are up for the second

half significantly, that is a good predictor of what is the potential

to the business. To what extent were you affected by the weakness of

sterling in these numbers? The impact of Brexit, the immediate

impact of Brexit has been fiercely weaker currency, leading through

into higher wine prices, those prices have filtered through to the

markets. I think we see the trading picture today reflects the current

exchange rate environment. The bit of Brexit that nobody really

understands, the impact on consumer behaviour. As your previous speaker

was saying, if inflation runs ahead of wages, it is impossible to expect

it will be positive. Very briefly, how is the English wine industry

doing from your point of view? Are you selling a lot of it? Probably

doing its best since Roman times! Which just completed our first

crowdfunding of an English winemaker, Charles Simpson, I think

English wine is certainly a respectable thing to drink, that is

a good thing. Good to talk with you, the boss of Majestic wines. Breaking

story while we have time. News of another failure at Heathrow Airport.

Terminal three and five, people heading out of Heathrow facing

flight without their luggage. Full details on the BBC business life

page. Top story today, UK Chancellor,

finance minister, Philip Hammond, is to set out his vision for a

business-friendly Brexit, in a speech in London this evening. He's

likely to guarantee more than $60bn of investment in infrastructure

projects. -- ?6 billion. keeping an eye on. A busy day for

corporate data, particularly in the UK. Interest rate decision at

midday. In 40 minutes, the latest retail sales figures. Expected to

show another slowdown in consumer spending as we have discussed a

little earlier. Last month, a ransomware cyberattack

hit business all around the world. The Wannacry infection caused

disruption in 99 countries with health services, energy companies

and mobile phone operators all affected by the software. And

Cybercrime is estimated to have cost the global economy around 450

billion dollars last year alone. So tackling these online threats is big

business. And there's a new technology that could stop the

hackers in their tracks. "Behavioural biometric

technology" as it's known, tries to identify unusual behaviour

on smartphones using information such as typing speed the force

applied to the touch-screen and the angle at which

the smartphone is held. Neil Costigan, Chief Executive

of BehavioSec joins me now. Your company comes as a great relief

to the banking sector because actually, when we find we have

financial fraud, the banks have to reimburse us, they carry the weight

of the cost and the fraud but your technology is helping. No silver

bullet, the industry uses every tool in its arsenal, and more and more,

trying to get into the frictionless way of doing it. So you are not

asking the user to a member complex passwords or carry tokens. From the

point of view of the bank, if I use an app on my smartphone to do my

banking, that comes with your security embedded, that provision

embedded, you would not... As a user I would not necessarily even know it

is there, but it might save the bank money. That is the case, the

application of it, they don't want to burden you with security, they

want many people to be using it, if security is seen as a friction, that

is a problem for them. Transparency is the keyword, user experience is

the keyword. That shift in mindset, from complexity and cost into more

user-friendly things. Talk us through how it works, this is not

just a case of putting in a password or scanning your fingerprint, this

is constantly working out that I am who I say I am while using it. A lot

of competition in the back end, it sounds like buzzword bingo but

breakthrough in AI and big data has got us to the point where this is

viable. You would hear rhythm, that idea has been around since the days

of Telegraph, it is about how hard you hit the screen, how you swipe,

how you move. The angle you hold it out, how you type, all that it is

already available in devices we have. Yes, sensors, they are all

there, all part of the operating system, and it is the power of the

computer and the consistency that has helped. You provide this

service, your clients are banks across Scandinavia, other parts of

Europe. Up to 35 million users across north-western Europe, digital

banks, digital platforms. This start, it was not your idea. I am a

veteran of the industry, I have done it 25 years, I have taken innovation

from Sweden to California before, I was back in Sweden working at a

university and undergraduate, working inside the university, had

the idea, and they said, we think we can verify people who they are by

their typing. What are they doing now? They are the founders. They

were on their way to New York yesterday, new office there, and the

guy is running the deal at the University. The reason this is so

useful, if you are hacked or suffer a breach, somebody knows your

password, this is able to stop them further down the process, it is not

once they are in they are in. This extra layer, it is more about

catching the individuals, or the knowledge thing. It is about the

person themselves. That is the level we have taken this to. As far as the

conversations you have with big financial institutions, I suppose it

is a cost, they will have to pay for it, but it may be... They do not pay

and a! LAUGHTER You want them to pay more, but it is

a trade-off, either they will pay it in compensation or upfront like

this. Security has been around forever, you'd like insurance

policies, you have to have it, otherwise other repercussions. What

was the last DVD that you bought? Or Blu-ray? I'm putting you on the

spot. Something for my daughter, when you are travelling. This is

what we are saying, apart from Ben, who did not have kiddies. It was a

DVD for my needs. Yes, something high quality, Pixar where you think

this is going to be a high-quality experience for you all, where you

think that it would not be as good if you downloaded.

Staying with technology, today is a good day for European Union mobile

phone customers. After years of negotiations, no longer, those

annoying extra fees to usual device in EU companies. But for phone

companies, it means the loss of a lucrative revenue flow. Dave Dyson

is CEO of the mobile network Three UK. He has been telling us how they

will make up the difference. Some operators make a lot of money out of

international roaming, that profit will be lost because of the new

regulation coming in. Critics of the scheme suggest that it is possible

that those companies will look to read group profits elsewhere within

the business. For my business, three, we have been offering

free-roaming for five years, we have not built up huge profits that we

now need to protect in some other way. Overseas companies, their

customers will come to the UK. One negotiating tactic is to say, if you

give us a great rate, we will offer you a reciprocal right when

customers come to the UK. We try lots of different techniques to

reduce the costs, whatever we do, we pass them the customer 's. David

Dyson, the boss of three. Netflix and Amazon are overtaking

the UK box office according to some research, your thoughts? Price war

-- this is a PricewaterhouseCoopers report. Blu-ray and DVD is going to

be the big loser. With streaming up 30%, ?1.4 billion every year, and

DVD sales will go down from 1.2. Our viewers are not convinced DVDs are

cheaper. Toby says, I like disks, I'm not painful pixels. I buy them

because the broadband companies stress me for using unlimited...

Internet access not good enough... This is reliant upon having a good

provider and network. If you have a good network, streaming is fine, if

it is intermittent, the buffering, then DVDs, certainly. Often the cost

of downloading a movie is more than in the supermarket and you have it

for only one week. It is not much of a gift, either, here is a

download... Last DVD you bought? The Star Wars boxed set. Mine was a

frozen DVD, that is a much better choice. You said that was for your

needs, but it was for you, wasn't it! Let it go! Let it go LAUGHTER

We will see you soon.