Rbs reports earnings this morning. The lender looking to bounce back from the biggest tank bailout in history. In breaking now, europes Biggest Phone Company thought to Telecom Reports earnings. Well bring you the numbers. Hello and welcome to countdown. Also coming up today, janet yellen sparred with republican lawmakers in her testimony before the house yesterday. We will tell you what the Federal Reserve chair had to say in those pushing for more congressional oversight over central bank. Greece has bought time of its economic Bailout Program. Bloomberg had the opportunity to sit down with the finance minister and he detailed the changes that greece has made in order to appease creditors and secure the countrys financial future. The first thing that has changed and quite drastically changed is that the new deflationary measures that the previous government had promised have been unaltered. Secondly the idea that this economy would exact a 3 primary surplus under the present circumstances that would have flamed the fires much further. That is gone for 2015. We have a pledge for 510 years beyond that that the level of the surplus will be renegotiated with a view to rescheduling and restructuring the debt. This is a major achievement. That was the great finance minister. We are just getting breaking news from europes largest phone company, reporting fourthquarter and fullyear numbers. Reporting q4 sales of 17 billion euros. The estimate was 16. 40 5 billion so it seems that number is better than estimates. On the cast or level 4. 4 billion against an estimate of 4. 6. Net loss of 100 4 million euros. It says the sale number came in ahead of analyst expectations. Hans nichols joins us from berlin. Good morning, anna. It looks like the dividend will be . 50 per share. That is the outlook for next year. It will be 18. 3 billion. This is a Telecom Company that is thinking about growth in spending. They have planned for the next five years to spend 23. 5 billion euros. Thats on top of the 23 billion euros they spent in the last five years. The question becomes, does vodafone answer . They hinted they had a 19 billion pounds Expansion Program where they were upgrading their global network. Vodafone has hinted that they dont want to go forward. It looks like they have a solid bead on all their top numbers. They still get quite a bit of revenue from the states. One quick note on Deutsche Telekom u. S. , they are assuming a one dollar 33. That may be giving them a little more cash flow from the u. S. Than if the euro stays low they could have even more. What is this we here about them teaming up with airbnb . Deutsche telekom has been partnering with a lot of tech companies. This is a way to get in line and have conversations with tech companies. They are offering the airbnb app preinstalled on the phones they sell in their store. There is a voucher accompanying that. Its a way for Deutsche Telekom to expand their reach and become almost a tech company in addition to a Telecom Company and it paves the way for airbnb to have a lot more customers prepackaged from Deutsche Telekom. Its more about how they are looking outward more, not just on building their network, but also on Building Alliance is. Thank you very much, hans nichols with the latest on the German Telecom sector and beyond from berlin. Breaking news from elians ali ons. On a net income basis and profit basis in the Fourth Quarter, we have mrs. On both metrics. Analysts estimating 1. 40 one billion. Narrow legal or last narrowly below last years figure. The company aims for 10. 8 billion dollars of operating profit in 2015. Most of the attention is on its Asset Management division which includes Allianz Global Investors and of course pimco, which suffered the worst year of withdrawal in the history of Fund Management last year. We all know about the departure of bill gross at the end of last year. Lets focus on allianz. Later we will be speaking with the cfo about the fourth order numbers and the outlook for the company in 2015. Lets go for a beer, it is 6 06 in the morning. The Fund Dividend beating estimates. Organic beer volume how do you grow your business . It was pretty much in line with estimates. Modelo was the big deal they did. The china Beer Industry is returning to growth. Brazil sales growing mid to high single digits. Mexican Beer Industry volumes will grow in 2015. So thats it on the beer market. The top british bankers were under pressure following a storm over at the hsbc role in helping clients. Taxes. Chief executive Stuart Gulliver open his testimony to u. K. Lawmakers with an apology. Click said like to put on the record an apology from both myself and from douglas for the unacceptable events that took place in the mid2000, which is clearly an apology we would like to make to you all, to our customers and shareholders and the public at large. It clearly was not acceptable. It has damaged hsbcs reputational. He told the u. K. Select committee that the practices through which hsbc helped set up Swiss Bank Accounts and also provided advice on how to you may taxes was firmly in the past. As hsbc executive struggle to contain the scandal over the swiss unit, the chief executive will forfeit one Million Pounds in pay, according to reports. Rbs received the biggest banking bailout in britain and the news comes two months before the u. K. Election head of the companys Earnings Release and roughly 52 minutes. Joining us is caroline. Lets focus on the hsbc story. It was fascinating, gulliver apologized, but collectively not taking personal responsibility. It makes everything seem unaltered as yet. It was two hours grilling with the in ps. Both sides got disgruntled and both sides remain relatively haughty at times. This was Private Banking unit 20052007, are the years they were meant to be looking at. Data was stolen from hsbc and helped criminals, arms dealers, dimon traffickers evade tax. We are now getting news that apparently untraceable wads of cash were handed over to potential clients and switzerland. What was going on . Chief executive Stuart Gulliver saying this took place in a different era. We have cleaned up and streamlined. He wanted to try to get across the changes he has made. But trying to shift the responsibility to the swiss managers at the time to the relationship managers at the time, even though he was himself finance director of hsbc when all of this was going on. He was the man behind the actual acquisition of some of the parts that became the swiss private bank. He was still blaming others and in part blaming swiss secrecy for the reason they did not realize any of this was going on. So much of it to begin with was front and center about Stuart Gullivers own tax arrangements. This is why they dragged him in at the last minute and changed it from 45 minutes to two hours because he himself admitted on monday that he had his own Swiss Bank Account and it was routed through panama. The question was why . He repeatedly tried to explain. Have a listen. First of all, there was no tax advantage or purpose whatsoever to the panamanian company. As a matter fact, there was no tax purpose to it. It was a panamanian nonentity. Purely to give me privacy within my own country. Why go to panama . Looking back on it years later clearly panama looks quite strange. It was simply a nominee injury. I didnt choose panama, it was a nominee into tea. Entity. Clutching to try to describe it. At this point it was the sensible thing to be doing. We are weaving that all together with the fact that he is so ardently not domiciled, he feels is a hong kong resident. And the kids have gone to school here. That plays to the crowd and help sensationalize. They were clearly trying to paint a picture of a culture and a type of person that are very different from the mainstream. Where does this investigation go from here . We now understand that her majestys revenue and customs have now got clearance from the french government for the first time in five years. They have been trying since 2010 and suddenly they get clearance to give these leaked details about the tax evasion, about the clients. It all came from an investigation and the fact that it is now in the Public Domain french tax authorities feel they can hand over this sort of data to other areas. Not just the fact that they can hand it over to the financial conduct authority, they can give it to cbs. Its not just about pursuing tax evasion issues, it becomes about potential other allegations and they can investigate whether moneylaundering was going on. We understand theres going to be a meeting between all of these authorities next week as is being reported by the Financial Times that this could drive the investigation forward. What we want to see now is who was to blame for this . They are saying no matter if they were to blame, we cannot claw back their bonuses, the money is long gone. It doesnt help when you have Stuart Gulliver not being able to save he is a fat cat or not. Have a listen. Would you consider yourself a fat cat . You would have to define fat hat for me in order for me to comment more meaningfully on that. I thought that was a fairly sensible clarification. Caroline, thank you very much. More to come on this story as we go through the morning and more on the Banking Sector of rbs later on. We will leave the banking story there for the moment. Ukraine centralbank lifting a ban on foreign currency trading last night less than 24 hours after imposing the restriction. It was the National Bank of ukraines second move this week to tighten capital control. Janet yellen sparred with public and lawmakers in her testimony before the house yesterday despite congresss growing demand fighting income inequality. The website was hijacked after the company was criticized for preinstalling Advertising Software on laptops. It exposed users to hacking. According to postings on twitter, Hackers Group called the lizard squad was behind the breach. The Search Engine is unifying its two separate european halves into one unit. Google said one structure will enable the company to respond better to local conditions. The maker of the fastgrowing counter drug is exploring options including a sale according to people with knowledge of the matter. The californiabased drugmaker has attracted attention from the likes of novartis and johnson johnson. It could fetch 18 billion in a sale. You can join the conversation on twitter and let us know about anything thats on your mind this morning. Coming up its all in the past. That was the message from hsbc executive Stuart Gulliver. Caroline was just telling you about tax practices. How will the other issues play out in the coming elections . Stay tuned for that. Welcome back to countdown. The government was just elected on antiausterity platform. We sat down with the finance minister. He told us what the new deal means for the greek people. We never promised her people would we would negotiate completely and bring it to conclusion the first two weeks. The greek people are not that gullible, and we are not that cynical. Secondly, we promised the end of the troika. Whenever said anything about wanting to get out of the eurozone. Our pledge to our partners and to the greek people is were going to do everything necessary to stay in the eurozone. Clearly that means having a relation with our central bank. This country has been part of the process since 1944. Obviously our relationship with the imf is ongoing. It must continue. And actually improving. But that is not a troika. Let me take you what a truck is so the people of greece know exactly what it is you dont have any reason to know it because you didnt suffer the indignity. What we refer to in this country as it forget is a team of technocrats dispatched to this country by these institutions to come here and impose upon the government and the people of program that was deflationary in nature, which had a fig leaf of a rp Reform Program that made a bad thing works. This is finished. We will have an a relationship that will be audited is something we seek. The reason why we extended the Loan Agreement was because we want to repudiate the condition now tease which those loans forgiven. These were not allowed to grow sufficiently to repay our debts. The idea that we promised to renegotiate austerity, that has already been attained, as we were saying before, the Prime Ministers target has been waived. These are all things the people out there on the street understand. The one thing they want is not money, its not even jobs, it is dignity. They want a government that goes to the European Union summit that discusses matters with the imf and the ecb with a view to reestablishing the very simple notion that the greek people must have a say in the circumstances and the program and the measures that will get us out of this meyer. That we have given them. Lets get back to the u. K. Banking story this morning. Following the storm over the hsbc role in helping clients thoughts taxes, the ceo of the banking group, Stuart Gulliver open his testimony with an apology. Lets bring our guest into the conversation. Hes from the institute for economic affairs. Mark, thanks for joining us. This was an overtly political event yesterday, was in it . Absolutely. You can tell her getting close to election time. These issues that previously were being treated as financial are now highly political. The question of who pays what level of tax and who is going to what level to avoid which taxes is going to be one of the issues in the British Election campaign, everybody paying their fair share. There is no doubt about that. I regret that a bit actually. I think it tends to velti, not light. Listening to Caroline Hyde earlier, i think theres a couple of things that need to be parceled out. She was pointing out the disasters pale by hsbc. There is a tax evasion point. If you are actually assisting the mafia or drug dealers are terrorist outfits in handling their money, that is a very serious issue and the authorities and people should end up in prison. If you are advising your clients on how to be tax efficient, lawabiding clients, or you yourself as the ceo of the bank are trying to put your cash in a sensible tax efficient way, i dont have any moral walls with that. Is that a problem with the system avoiding creating these numerous loopholes . We definitely need a simplification. Its really the tax system that is to blame. We are looking at the symptoms, not the cause. The tax code is about 17000 pages long. It is impossible for one human being to actually understand the entire cool book. So people specialize in 20 pages here or chapter there. Continually, despite politicians including our own chancellor, george osborne, saying we have to have a drive to make tax much simpler. Everyudget th com in there is a special tax dispensation if you want to help and assist in making childrens films, that sort of thing. It suddenly becomes a mechanism for avoiding tax. We set up a rulebook that complicated, that detailed that its hardly surprising anyone expect people to game the system. People do that at all levels whether they are fatcat ceos of major interNational Banks are just simply looking at whether to put the next hundred pounds i o into my back pocket or into a pension. Thats a sort of thing where you need tax advice or an understanding of the long to avoid tax. Personally all rational people will do that. We have a bunch of people in parliament who have or a house that has taken cash for questions and they have the audacity to turn around and call the people in front of them fat cats. It really is a double standard isnt it . I think this term fatcat is not particularly a useful term. Its very illdefined. It shows how politicized the debate is getting. What is the difference between a fatcat and a highly successful businessman who has made millions and done a great job . What is the difference between those two . The scandal that absolutely rocked westminster politics in british politics the problem there was the rules were not simple. What can i claim for and what can i not claim for . But by a constituent of chocolate biscuit and a cup of coffee can i claim that as a legitimate expense, or does that come out of my pocket . Thank you very much for joining us good to get your thoughts, Mark Littlewood former head of media for the liberal democrat party. Find out more after the break. Youre watching countdown. Foreign exchange volatility, take a look at this. Volatility is going to drop by 13. 5 this week. That is the biggest decline in Foreign Exchange volatility since 2010. Just to put it in context, look back at the start of january. Volatility was at a threeyear high. Janet yellen talking about remaining patient. For the moment its helping the Foreign Exchange traders. Have a look at the dollar index. Its virtually flat on the day. The aussie dollar is where you have seen a little more volatility. What you have here is a little more pressure on the aussie dollar. Business investment in the Fourth Quarter contracted more than the market had anticipated. Since 1