26/10/2017 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News

with Ben Bland and Alice Baxter.

The social media popularity contest

- will Twitter report new monthly

users when it announces results

in a few hours, or has it peaked?

Live from London, that's our

top story on Thursday,

26th of October.

The micro-blogging

site has announced

new features to make the platform

safe and abuse-free.

But is it enough?

Also in the programme...

An end to stimulus or just

a slowdown in bond buying?

Economists will pour over the

European Central Bank's statement

later for clues about

the bank's plans.

Here is how the markets are

looking... Lukewarm opening to the

session, a bit of a lukewarm day in

Asia and a retreat on Wall Street.

Also coming up...

An idea that's got

the agricultural industry buzzing.

A company in Canada is using bees

to deliver biological

disease control to crops

as they pollinate the flowers.

We'll find out how Bee

Vectoring Technologies

is using the power of nature.

And as Amazon announces

a new service to unlock your front

door, we want to know,

would you give a courier

access to your home

when you're not there

in order to avoid a missed delivery?

Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

We were talking about that,

We were talking about that, Alice

said, I could let someone in if you

needed me to. I would not trust

Alice! I am only joking of course!

Welcome to Business Live.

Is Twitter facing

a crisis of confidence?

The micro-blogging site is releasing

corporate results later -

and many will be looking to see

if its popularity is waning.

This is the number they need to beat

- 328 million monthly active users.

That was the figure for both

the first and second

quarters this year.

In May, the Chinese micro-blogging

site Weibo overtook

Twitter in active users -

340 million - up 30% from 2016.

The once champion of free speech,

Twitter, announced earlier

in the month that it will implement

new rules to make the platform free

from hate and abuse,

targeting unwanted sexual advances,

hate symbols and tweets

glorifying violence.

And of course, Twitter,

like other social media,

has pledged to be more transparent

about advertising -

who is paying and to what end.

But is that all enough

to restore trust in Twitter?

Samira Hussain has

more from New York.

We will not cross over to New York

because instead I have got Emma

Robertson in the studio.

The CEO of the digital consultancy

Transform is with me now.

There are many challenges facing

Twitter, it is still not making

money.

This has been an ongoing

story for too long. One of the key

things this year is they have

started to see quarterly declines in

revenue rather than just the

profitability question. You cannot

turn a profit if revenue is

declining. The monthly user figure

will be really important but all of

these things echoing the same

narrative Twitter have been putting

up for a long time, increases in

monthly users are important to the

story, but we need more of a step

change in, what does it mean to its

users and how can it be attracted to

the brand is paying to advertise on

it?

As was mentioned, there is the

double challenge facing Twitter.

They need to make more money from

advertising but they are under huge

pressure to be more transparent in

advertising. Who is advertising on

the platform? Particularly in the

wake of the US election.

It will be

a challenge that Twitter and other

social media platforms. The ongoing

tension, are we a platform

supporting a free user base to

disseminate information or are we a

media player with an editorial and

regulatory responsibility? We are

seeing a lot of the news Twitter

have announced this week, a threat

that the honesty act being tabled by

US Congress, if you do not regulate

yourselves, we will regulate for

you. At the same time as trying to

balance an open platform where

advertisers and users can express

themselves how they want to, they

are having to get much more into the

uncomfortable space of editorial and

judgment.

We might see a new icon if

a politician tweets so we know it is

political.

Political adverts will

have to carry an explicit icon

saying it is political. Most of that

disruption is not paid for

advertising, it is issue -based

content associated with users.

Twitter have introduced features to

try to grow the number of active

monthly users. If you were given a

phone call by Twitter and they said,

what should we be doing to ward off

the challenge from the likes of

Weibo?

One of the things they need

to do is look more radically at how

they can monetise their user base

and the brands that work with them

already. Advertising has been a

really big theme for them, but also

the question of, how do you keep

users on longer? Things like live

streaming video. Customer service,

one of the biggest ways brands

engage with the platform, someone

tweets they have had a bad flight,

those brands can get to the point

very quickly, monetising the

customer service and follow with

things, that would be radical play

for them. And also, it has been

suggested that were brands have

multi-million numbers of followers,

should a brand start to pay for

that, rather than it being something

Twitter supports?

So much we could

have talked about! The Trump bump.

Good to talk to you. Those results

from Twitter coming out in a few

hours.

Let's take a look at some of

the other stories making the news...

Deutsche Bank has agreed

to pay $220 million

to resolve a US investigation

into its manipulation

of interest rates.

It is the latest settlement stemming

from banks' involvement

in the rigging of the benchmark

Libor rate.

The sum is more than twice

the $100 million British bank

Barclays agreed to pay

last year to end a similar probe.

China will no longer set

a target to double gross

domestic product from 2021.

The government will now focus

on the quality of growth rather

than pursue economic growth

exclusively, a senior Communist

Party official said on Thursday.

Australia and New Zealand Banking

Group Ltd reports an 18% jump

in annual profit on lower bad debts

and cost cuts.

It warned that finding revenue

growth is getting harder,

as it retreats from Asia and instead

is focusing in its domestic market.

Japanese company Kobe Steel has been

giving more details of the data

fabrication scandal that has

rocked the industry.

Monica Miller is in Singapore.

What more details did we get?

Company officials spoke to reporters

in Tokyo and said they have law

certification on some of the copper

products they make at the plant

outside of Tokyo. This news is

another major blow to the country's

third-largest steel-maker which was

already feeling the pinch as

customers switched orders to their

competitors. Kobe Steel's shares

lost 1.5% after announcing the news.

They also say they suspect there may

be four more cases of inappropriate

data at there. It should be said up

until now they have about 525

customers and none of them have

reported any safety concerns. They

did also say they have a third

party, there are three lawyers that

will independently look at the data,

and they expect the data should be

at the end of the year, the end of

the report. Company officials tried

to get ahead of this. Earlier this

month, they had a notice on the

website saying what had happened

with the false data but it sent

shock waves through the pipe chain

from everything from auto-makers to

trains, even the famous bullet

trains in Japan. Again, no instances

of safety concerns have been

reported at this point.

Thank you

very much. Looking at the markets

now...

Asian markets were largely muted

Thursday, tracking a retreat

on Wall Street as fears over

the progress of US President Donald

Trump's tax cut plans

dampened investor sentiment.

But Tokyo edged up slightly,

bolstered by positive corporate

earnings and a weak yen that boosts

Japanese exporters.

US stocks closed lower after hitting

several records in the last month,

with disappointing reports

from companies including AT&T

and Boeing prompting

a sell-off across the market.

Let us show you how the European

markets look, mixed picture at the

start of the day.

In currency markets,

the euro added to overnight gains

to reach a six-day high

against the dollar.

That was prompted by expectations

the European Central Bank would cut

back its bond-buying stimulus

and take the biggest step

yet in unwinding years

of loose monetary policy.

We will find out what they will do

when they meet later, around

lunchtime. We will keep an eye on

that. Looking ahead on Wall Street

today.

Three big names in tech will

be reporting earnings on Thursday.

Amazon, Microsoft. Amazon has been

getting a lot of attention lately as

more than 200 cities across North

America have put in bids to be home

to the company's second

headquarters. Look out for any

updates on Amazon's $13.7 billion

purchase of whole foods. The

continued push to the cloud will

help Microsoft's revenue for the

quarter. It is being led by its

flagship cloud computing programme.

Finally, Google's parent company

Alphabet is expected to report a

rise in revenue. People searching on

their mobile phones was a boost for

the company. Its non-search

businesses like YouTube were all

bigger than expected moneymakers.

Maike Currie, investment director,

at Fidelity International.

The tech earnings in just a moment,

but let us roll back to what Ben was

talking about, the big meeting later

today of the European Central Bank,

high expectation they will unwind

the years of loose monetary policy

we have been seeing. What are you

expecting?

It is a key moment for

financial markets on the continent

because what the market is expecting

is for them to give some indication

of how the ECB plans to roll back

the bond buying programme. They will

not reduce it, buying 60 billion

euros of bonds a month this year,

but come 2018, the expectation is

this will come down down possibly to

50 billion, 40 billion. Once they

have completely tapered the bond

buying, they will start raising

interest rates. When he has the

press conference later this

afternoon, he will be pressed on

what it means. Interest rates will

only rise after quantitative easing,

bond buying is stopped. But how long

will it take? It means an interest

rate rise in Europe will probably

only happen in the second half of

2019.

Still a way ahead and any

interest rate rise would be

incremental.

Gradual, rather than

liftoff.

Across the pond, bit of a

disappointing day on Wall Street,

but tech results out today.

All eyes

will be on the tech giants today

because they are the companies that

have been leading the market,

companies like Amazon and Google,

parent company being Alphabet. The

key thing with tech results,

investors always look for growth,

but what the companies have been

doing, ramping up spending to find

the next big things. Amazon is

moving into grocery, Google is

moving into hardware, and the cloud,

so the focus will be on costs.

Spending a lot, are they getting the

revenues increasing for the

increased spend? The expectation is

revenues will increase because the

tech giants are leading the pack and

there is a narrowing in market

leadership, few companies, counting

them on one hand, leading the market

and that is making investors

nervous. Usually the precursor to a

market correction is when we only

have a few companies leading the

pack.

Good to talk to you. You will

take us through the business papers

later on. We will see you later.

Still to come...

Bee power - yes, one company

is using bumble bees as a disease

control transport system for crops.

We'll find out how it

all works in a few minutes.

You're with Business

Live from BBC News.

Barclays has announced a 19% rise

in pre-tax profits to £3.4 billion

for the three months

to 30th September.

The company has called it

an encouraging set of results.

Andrew Walker has been

going through the figures for us.

So that we don't have to! Thanks,

Andrew.

Profits are up quite strongly,

on the face of it.

What was driving that?

It has been a trying year for

Barclays management and

shareholders. The share price since

January, started the year at around

2.20 per share, now trading a touch

below 1.90, decline of 15%. The

finance director describes the

latest results as encouraging, they

have been doing restructuring and

there is a big charge on the figures

here for the disposal of their

Africa operation. It is the UK

business where there has been the

most striking improvement. Smaller

provisions in the accounts for

problem loans and a marked decline

in the amount they are having to put

aside for past misconduct issues,

notably the selling of payment

protection insurance. Important

progress there and they see this as

the basis, I think, for trying to

improve returns to shareholders in

the future. In the UK business,

there were a couple of areas where

things were not quite so good,

income was down, but that was more

than offset by declines on the cost

side.

And hard times in international

financial markets?

Absolutely, the market is a bit of

the business, their income was down

14% because of lower market

volatility. So somebody does gain

when the markets are relatively

unstable. Also an increase in the

amount they have had to set aside in

the international business for

problem loans, so two very different

stories for Barclays home and away.

Andrew, many thanks indeed.

Reuters news agency are saying

London's Canary Wharf railway

station has been closed because of a

fire alert, that is the station

closest to many banks and financial

services close to London Docklands.

So the Canary wharf Docklands

railway station was closed and a

stretch of the DLR between Canary

Wharf and West India key is that

affects your commute this morning.

You're watching Business Live.

Our top story:

Twitter reports earnings later,

as the micro-blogging site hopes

to grow user numbers

in the last three months.

Quite often here on Business Live,

we feature groundbreaking

new technology that aims to disrupt

one industry or another.

And to do that, sometimes,

you just have to look to nature.

That's the case with our next guest.

He's the boss of Bee

Vectoring Technologies -

a company using bees to deliver

biological protection to crops

Here's how it works.

The company places its special

powder - made of fungus

and light adherent -

in a special dispenser.

You will see that in a moment.

Commercially-reared bees

are then directed to walk

through the dispenser

as they leave the hive.

When the bees leave their hive

and fly around their natural

foraging area, they deliver

the treatment to each

plant they visit.

One man knows everything about

there. Road

One man knows

everything about there.

Road

Ashish Malik is CEO of Bee Vectoring

Technologies and joins us now.

many thanks. You have brought one of

your hives into the studio,

demonstrate how it works.

This is a

commercial bumblebee hive and there

is no live insects inside here.

Delighted to hear that!

What you see

inside the box is where the bees

normally nest. You have around 200

bees inside a full mature beehive.

As the bees leaving the...

Turn it

this way, these holes.

You see the

bees come in through this whole and

they nest inside and when they

leaving, they walk across this tray

and this tray contains the

beneficial planned treatment agent.

It is a powder that sits inside the

tray. As they believe the beehive,

they carry that beneficial fungus to

the crops.

This is a biological

treatment that is good both for the

plants and the bees.

Absolutely, the

beneficial fungus reaches the plant

and colonisers it in a Sim by Artic

relationship and helps the plant by

the diseases. Through the use of

this technology, farmers reduce

chemical pesticides they are using

on the crops which is good for

consumers.

A quick question. If I

were a farmer and if I were spraying

a crop protection agent across

minefields, I would know which areas

I have covered, with this, how can I

be sure the bees have covered the

entire area you need them to work

on?

This is backed by many years of

research study and field trials and

we have determined through the

number of bees inside a beehive how

many hives we have the place in a

crops field. At the pens. The number

is different. The breeze and

sunflowers -- it depends. The way

bees work, that is their food source

and they are good at finding flowers

with the nectar and pollen they need

to bring back to the hives and

successive waves of bees visit

hives, flowers with the food source.

As a layman observer, there are lots

of bees around in the summer, not as

many in the winter, presumably this

only works for seasonal crops that

need protecting in summer?

The

concept of using commercial bees to

deliver a biological treatment of

plants can be adapted for different

species of bees. I have brought a

system that works with bumblebees

which tend to work in colder

temperatures, wet climates. But then

you have got other seasons whether

temperatures warm up or dryer and

honey bees are better suited in

those seasons. We are now adapting

this system to work with honey bees

as well so over time, we will have a

system for different species of

bees.

You have been undergoing months of

testing and it still has to pass

through approval in the States and

in Europe, but throughout the

testing, how many of these to you

need per hectare or ache of farming

if one was a farmer and what do they

cost and how successful has it been

in terms of fruit yield?

The key to

this technology, we have to find a

way to increase the profitability

for the farmer so if we are not able

to improve the economics for the

farming operation, we do not have a

viable business model. We have been

testing this for many years, the

technology is about 20 years old,

the concept of using bees for

biological treatment has been

studied for a while in the academic

community. We have been doing

studies in a replicated environment

for a couple of years and in

strawberries, the research suggests

we need about one hive and a half

per acre, which is three hives

Petzer, we still deal in acres in

the United States, but for other

crops, the density is different.

We

were talking about this earlier,

does it hurt the bees?

Of course

not. We have done studies to show

that the particular product we

factoring is totally safe for the

bees, it is a natural organism which

does not have any effect on the

adults. And on the law. And we have

been able to demonstrate that the

yields the farmer gets from using

this technology are much higher than

conventional methods.

We have run

out of time, but really good to see

you, from a Bee Vectoring

Technologies.

In a moment, we'll take a look

through the Business Pages,

but first, here's a quick reminder

of how to get in touch with us.

You can stay ahead with the breaking

business news on the Business Live

page and we will keep you up-to-date

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And on Twitter. And you can find us

on Facebook. Business Live, and TV

and online, whenever you need to

know.

Maike is back to look

through the papers.

In the New York Times, Amazon have

this new technology that could allow

a career to access your home, unlock

your door and leave a parcel and go,

we have been asking for your

messages. This says, ludicrous idea,

next, they will come into on packet.

Dangerous, somebody could hack the

codes and get in.

David, yes, others, certainly not. I

wouldn't want to know the expected

time of the driver beforehand.

I love Tracy's, she simply says, is

it April one?! And Tim says, they

cannot even manage to shut the front

gate, never mind the front door!

What did you make of this New York

Times article?

It is interesting, in

terms of how it works, it does make

sense, at you by a kit from Amazon

involving a smart lock and security

camera and the lock helps the driver

verify if they are at the right

address and that opens the door and

the security camera records the

delivery of the package. This is

usually convenient if you have been

at work or you have missed a package

or the package has been left out in

the rain. And it sets the trend for

things like letting in a cleaner or

a dog walker. There is a bigger

question around trust and

technology. Technology has strayed

-- has changed who we trust and

where we trust, companies like Abbie

AB, staying in a stranger's house.

Uber, a stranger's car. We trust

strangers because of technology and

this is the next step in that

revolution.

Thank you.

That's it from Business Live today.

Goodbye.