That's all from BBC Business Live for today. We're back again at 0600 GMT - thanks for reading.
That's all from BBC Business Live for today. We're back again at 0600 GMT - thanks for reading.
It only seems like yesterday... Nick Leeson - the man who brought down Barings Bank -posted this tweet today:
20 yrs ago, I was making a run for the airport. The plan was to get to Thailand and see how the dust settled. Didnt realise i'd set off a bomb
The former trader - pictured arriving for his trial in Singapore in November 1995 - is now a sought-after conference speaker.
Potentially good news for millions of workers: the Low Pay Commission has urged the Government to increase the minimum wage from £6.50 to £6.70 an hour in October. The above-inflation increase is likely to be accepted by Business Secretary Vince Cable. Apprentices, whose wages are far lower, will get just 7p an hour more.
More excitement from the world of regulation. The US Federal Trade Commission has given Novartis approval for its $16bn deal to buy GlaxoSmithKline's cancer drug business. In return, Novartis has been ordered to sell assets related to two cancer drugs still in development. Thedeal was first announced in April 2014.
After Wall Street closed at new record highs on Friday following the Greek bailout deal, there were hopes that theFTSE 100 would follow suit. However, the 4.6% decline in HSBC shares helped London's blue-chip index to end down 3 points at 6,912 on Monday. G4S was the top riser, adding 3.2%. The chart shows how the FTSE has performed over the past month.
The gas turbines sector may not be the sexiest, but that has not stopped European Commission regulators from casting a concerned eye over General Electric's proposed €12.4bn (£9.1bn) takeover of Alstom's power equipment business. They fear the deal may reduce competition by eliminating one of three main global players and result in higher prices. A decision on whether to block the deal is expected by 8 July.
Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour shadow, Ed Balls, are sparring over HSBC in the House of Commons. Mr Balls accused Mr Osborne of "sweeping these issues under the carpet" and "turning a blind eye". The chancellor called Labour "the party of the tax avoiders" when it was in government.
Another day, another central bank cuts interest rates. This time the Bank of Israel has unexpectedly cut from 0.25% to just 0.1% in an attempt to stop the shekel appreciating and to tackle deflation. It was the first rate move by the bank in six months and sent the currency down 1%. Turkey is expected to follow suit on Tuesday.
Trading is underway on Wall Street and the S&P500 is down 0.2%, while theDow Jones has shed 0.35% after both closed at record highs on Friday following news of the Greek bailout deal. Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen will update Congress on US monetary policy this week.
Honda has a new boss as the Japanese car maker tries to deal with the fallout of a series of recalls. Takahiro Hachigo, 55, (pictured right) who joined Honda in 1982, replaces Takanobu Ito, 61, who was in the job for six years. His departure follows the mass recalls in the US of faulty air bags made by Takata which have been linked to six deaths - all in Honda cars.
Apple plans to build two new data centres in Europe - one in Ireland and another in Denmark - at a cost of $1.9bn (£1.23bn). The centres, to be powered entirely by renewable energy, will run Apple's online services such as the App and iTunes stores, iMessage and Siri for customers across Europe.
Good afternoon from me and thanks to Matthew West and Ian Pollock for this morning's sterling live coverage. Do let me know your views on the day's business news at email@example.com or on Twiter at @BBCbusiness
Labour hopes to embarrass the government this afternoon over HSBC and the pay and bonuses of its chief executive Stuart Gulliver. An urgent question will be put to the Chancellor (or his appointed stand-in) about the issue. Cathy Jamieson, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, said: "People will be astounded that bonuses of this size are still being paid out after the revelations of the last few days."
It's been a poor month for retailers according to the latest research from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). The survey of 138 firms found the balance of retailers experiencing sales growth in February slid to plus one from plus 39 in January, the lowest reading since November 2013. Retailers also cut the orders they placed with suppliers to a balance of minus seven, the lowest since May 2013.
BBC Business editor
In all the coverage of HSBC's Swiss private banking arm and Stuart Gulliver's banking arrangements (channelled through Switzerland and Panama), it is easy to miss the factthat HSBC has more broadly had a torrid year.
Here is another choice quote: "What it does do is redistribute wealth. It makes the asset-rich richer but the asset poor see no benefit and continue to be more exposed to the economy's structural problems, such as high and rising youth unemployment, a lack of real wage growth and persistently high debt levels."
A Evans Pritchard
International business editor, the Daily Telegraph
Here is a choice quote: "Unfortunately, we have plentiful evidence from the past six years to confirm the trickle-down effect simply does not work. The fruits of the policy are consumed in the financial world but the wider economy fails to benefit. On its own QE does nothing to improve economic fundamentals."
Here is a fascinating article from the website ofMoney Marketing, a publication aimed at financial advisers. The highly successful investment manager Neil Woodford picks apart the effects of quantitative easing, the policy of the Bank of England and now the European Central Bank (ECB).
BBC Business editor
George Osborne to answer an "Urgent Question" in the Commons on HSBC and tax avoidance at 3.30pm
Mark Harper, a minister at the DWP, told Radio 4's Today programme that pensioners as a group were among the poorest in the country. Is that true? TheOffice for National Statistics (ONS) said that in 2010-11, pensioner couples received an average annual income, from all sources, of £31,720. Is that poor? Their gross incomes had risen by about 50% since 1994-95.
David Cameron has pledged to maintain universal benefits for pensioners. This includes free travel, the winter fuel allowance and free eye tests, among others. The prime minister was pushed on whether he would repeat this election promise, one he made in 2010. Since then he has had to face down pressure to scrap the benefits for wealthier pensioners.
What might be on the Greek government's shopping list of "reforms" that it would like the so-called troika of financial authorities to agree? We don't know. But Anastasia Yamali of the newspaper Avghi, which is affiliated to the Greek governing party Syriza, has told the BBC: "I'm pretty sure that the reforms are going to be about tackling of tax evasion, oil smuggling, to tackle the humanitarian crisis and definitely reforms that could reform the state to make it more effective and a bit more flexible but with different terms than the past government."
A bit further down in its financial report, HSBC gives its view of the UK's membership of the European Union. It states: "One economic uncertainty stands out for a major financial institution headquartered in the UK, that of continuing UK membership of the EU. Today, we publish a major research study, which concludes that working to complete the single market in services and reforming the EU to make it more competitive are far less risky than going it alone, given the importance of EU markets to British trade."
German business confidence rose to a seven-month high in February, a leading survey has said, suggesting Europe's largest economy is starting 2015 on a stronger footing. The IFO Institute for Economic Research's business climate index, which is based on a monthly survey of some 7,000 firms, increased from 106.7 in January to 106.8 in February. That was the highest reading since July 2014.
At the BBC business unit we thrive on official statistics, especially those about the economy. They keep us in a job. But it seems that fewer than a third of voters trust politicians to be honest with the stats. Horrifyingly, the British Social Attitudes Survey has found that only 19% of respondents trusted the media to report the statistics accurately!
Has Greece submitted its list of economic reforms demanded by its creditors, to extend the country's bailout programme by four months? A European source has told Agence France-Presse it has. But a European Commission spokeswoman is reported to have suggested otherwise.
Greek bank customers withdrew €3bn (£2.2bn) from their accounts last week, before Friday's last-minute aid extension agreement with the country's euro zone creditors. That's according to an estimate from US investment bank JP Morgan and is 50% higher than the week before. It also means Greek banks were on course to run out of collateral for new loans in eight weeks - as opposed to 14 weeks as previously estimated - had a deal not been agreed.
BBC News Channel
Thanos Vamvakidis of Bank of America Merrill Lynch tells World Business Report: "Greece is not out of the woods yet, we are at the beginning of a very long process. Market volatility will continue but it was very important to reach an agreement on Friday, otherwise banks could have been under tremendous pressure this week. They were already losing deposits, they've got the message from the European Central Bank, so at least now they've got some time and hopefully they will reach an agreement in the next few days."
Why did HSBC threaten recently to withdraw advertising from media organisations (the Telegraph and the Guardian)? Because it made no commercial sense to advertise alongside hostile editorial material, nothing more sinister, Mr Gulliver says.
Questioned about how HSBC staff now feel, Mr Gulliver admits to shame and embarrassment. His chairman, Douglas Flint, describes the Swiss tax dodging revelations as "totally humbling". So far though, there has been no contact from the UK authorities about the Swiss private bank, Mr Gulliver reveals. Mr Flint adds: "We have not been given any credit for the large amount of work we have done to restructure that private bank."
Mr Gulliver gives a fascinating insight into his own tax affairs. Back in the 1990s HSBC's computer system in Hong Kong let everyone in the bank access the accounts of every other member of staff. So he opened a bank account in Switzerland for privacy reasons. "To protect me from the HK staff," he says. And the Panama account was then opened "to protect me from the Swiss staff".
City editor, The Times
Talking about the tax dodging activities of HSBC's Swiss private bank, Mr Gulliver explains that this has been the fault of past managers and that the current bank management are the ones who have been doing something about it.
Mr Gulliver, talking about his own bonuses, has explained that all his pay is taxed in the UK, and that most of his bonuses are in shares and are deferred (so he can't sell them immediately). They are subject to 100% clawback by the bank for seven years. He says that means the bank has plenty of time to deal with anything untoward that might emerge about his time as chief executive.
London'sFTSE 100 Index is lower by 0.06% at 6910.73 just over an hour into the trading day. Unsurprisingly HSBC is among the biggest fallers following the release of its annual results earlier this morning. On the other hand Lloyds is among the top risers after the government announced it had sold another tranche of shares in the bank taking its shareholding down to 24% from 4% last year.
Stuart Gulliver has told a conference call for journalists that he has lost £1.75m in potential bonuses in the past two years because of the bank's fines for fixing foreign exchange rates, and for "other control failures".