It’s the season to get vouchers from friends, colleagues and sometimes your employer.  But not all of them are transferable?   

Mostly if you get a voucher for one place it’s only usable in that place.  But increasingly there are options to buy a voucher which is usable in dozens of places.  That’s especially the case for spa or resort days out. 

 Speaking to Emmet this morning was Adrienne Stewart the Founder of Hotel and Spa resorts.com . 

We spend a lot of time worrying about how artificial intelligence will overpower humanity. But what if the real problem is the reverse? Emmet ask  Jonathan Birch, a professor at LSE and author of Edge of Sentience. 

There is a phrase that ‘Demography is destiny’ and India’s destiny looks increasingly good.  It passed China recently as the most populous nation on Earth with 1.3bn people while birth rates are falling everywhere else. 

But its economy is also booming and is set to pass out Japan and Germany to become the 3rd largest in the world.   And its middle class will soon start moving the dial in terms of global trade.  But its poverty levels are still huge and it could take a century to modernise its infrastructure.  

Joe discusses all with James Pomeroy is Global economist with HSBC. 

Bluesky is the microblogging site which was set up a few years ago by the Twitter founder Jack Dorsey among others.  It has percolated along quietly until Nov 6th when an Elon Musk-backed Donald Trump won the US elections.  Since then it has soared to 21 million users worldwide.  But without any adverts, how will BlueSky survive?  All to discuss with Rose Wang the COO of BlueSky in California.

Wednesday's business news headlines along with Joe Lynam.

Next week the new European commission will be sworn in with Michael McGrath as the Justice commissioner. That means this week is the last one for Mairead McGuinness, the Commissioner for financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union. 

She’s had a bit to deal with since taking over in 2020 including a global pandemic, a war on the European continent and a surge in inflation as well as right wing extremism. But her primary concern has been on financial services and sanctions on Russia. How is her report card at the end of her time? Commissioner Mairead McGuinness joined Joe this morning on the show.

Joe Lynam takes a run through Tuesday business headlines.

The famous privacy advocate Max Schrems took the Facebook owner Meta to the European court of Justice and got a key ruling last month. This could have a major impact on online advertising and how personal information is handled by the big social media giants.  The ruling led to Meta changing its terms and conditions and to criticism from One of its Directors Nick Clegg.  But what exactly do companies need to know? To discuss further Joe spoke to Bryony Long is the Co lead of Lewis Silkin’s Data, Privacy and Cyber Group.

Black Friday is officially this coming Friday but we all know that the online sales have begun already.  Most retailers are honest and open but unfortunately there are unscrupulous fraudsters out there who design very believable websites selling non-existent goods or services.  

Often, it's up to the discretion of individual banks as to whether they will refund money spent on these fake sites.  One major bank PTSB says its software has slashed fake website clicks. 

Speaking to Joe this morning was Peter Vance is the Chief Operating officer for PTSB.

Russ Mould  from AJ Mould takes a look at the main business news stories along with Joe Lynam.