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MPs will get the chance to grill the two bosses of HSBC this afternoon. Chief executive Stuart Gulliver and chairman Douglas Flint face MPs on the Treasury Select Committee from 1415 GMT. That's in relation to the behaviour of HSBC's Swiss unit, which it emerged a fortnight ago helped wealthy clients evade hundreds of millions of pounds of tax. We'll bring you live updates once proceedings get underway.

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US retailer Target has reported a stronger-than-expected 3.8% rise in like-for-like sales and profits for the three months to the end of January, helped by its expanding online business, and has forecast modest earnings growth in the current quarter. Target's sales figures beat Wall Street forecasts. Last month, the retailer announced plans to pull out of the Canadian market. It draws to an end a difficult year for the retailer, which was the victim of a data breach that hurt profits.

Linda Yueh
Chief business correspondent

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Paying to lend to GE RT@MarcoBabic1: Germany AUCTIONS 5-YEAR NOTES AT NEGATIVE YIELD FOR FIRST TIME. YIELD IS -0.08%

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Applications for US mortgages have fallen for a third consecutive week as interest rates have edged higher, an industry group has said. The Mortgage Bankers Association says its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home buying demand, fell 3.5% in the week to 20 February. That was its lowest level since the start of the years. The report follows comments from US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, which suggested that interest rates could rise later this year.

Anthony Reuben
BBC News head of statistics

These figures are more frustrating than enlightening. We know that the number of people saying they have a zero hours contract has risen, but maybe they just didn't know before. Read more here.

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The proportion of owner-occupiers in England who own their house outright was for the first time larger than the proportion of those with a mortgage in 2013-14, according to official figures, external. "There were an estimated 22.6 million households in England. Overall, 63% or 14.3 million were owner occupiers, of which 33% (7.4 million) owned outright and 31% (6.9 million) buying with a mortgage. This has changed from 2012-13, when equal proportions were owned outright and with a mortgage," the English Housing Survey said.

Kevin Peachey
Personal finance and consumer affairs reporter

tweets, external: Will #pension reforms mean that more staff take up contributions from employers, and is everyone ready?

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which has been lobbying against zero hours working, says the contracts "sum up what has gone wrong in the modern workplace". TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady says, external: "They [zero hours contracts] shift almost all power from the worker and give it to their boss. Anyone on such a contract has no guarantee of any work from one day to another. Put a foot wrong, and you can find yourself with little or no work."

Kevin Peachey
Personal finance and consumer affairs reporter

Pensioners seem to have been draining their savings accounts to invest in market-leading pensioner bonds, say the big banks. Figures from the British Bankers Association, external show that deposits with High Street banks fell by 1.2bn in January - just as the government-backed bonds went on sale to the 65 and overs.

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Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that there is "a lot of doubt in Germany" about Greece's reform commitments. Nevertheless, he has recommended that German policymakers vote in favour of Greece's four month bailout extensions in parliament on Friday.

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Shares in white goods retailer AO World have plunged 47% today after it warned its full-year profits would be lower than expected. The online business, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange nearly a year ago, says UK full-year earnings will be around £16.5m. It says Black Friday sales did not produce additional revenues but instead condensed them into a shorter period. The firm's founder and chief executive John Roberts said last month he was confident of meeting full-year targets. Analysts had forecast pre tax profits of around £19m for the year.

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Lego says its multi-coloured toy blocks continued to be in strong demand last year. Net profit in 2014 increased 15% to 7 billion kroner (£690m).

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Royal Bank of Scotland has suspended two staff as part of foreign exchange probe a day before it reports its annual results. The bank says in a statement: "We can confirm that two members of staff have been suspended as part of the on-going FX investigation at the bank," The bank launched an internal review into its FX activities after it was one of six banks fined a combined £2.6bn for failing to stop traders trying to manipulate currency markets. RBS had already suspended three employees out of six who had been placed into a disciplinary process.

Petrobras needs to provide its audited annual statements by 30 April , but it has said it will only be able to do so by the end of May. Moody's says "extended delay carries the risk that creditors could take actions that lead to a declaration of technical default". On corruption, Moody's says "additional rating actions will consider any further developments in the ongoing corruption investigation". Tomorrow Petrobras will be subjected to yet another investigation: this time by a Congress Inquiry, which is likely to bring even more media attention over the coming months.

We've dug out a BBC explanation of what a zero hours contract looks like: "Zero-hours contracts, or casual contracts, allow employers to hire staff with no guarantee of work. They mean employees work only when they are needed by employers, often at short notice. Their pay depends on how often they work. Some zero-hours contracts oblige workers to take the shifts they are offered; others do not. Sick pay is often not included, although holiday pay should be, in line with working time regulations."

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Credit rating agency Moody's has cut the credit rating of Petrobras to junk. It cut the Brazilian oil company's rating by two notches to Ba2 (or two levels below investment grade). Moody's says: "These rating actions reflect increasing concern about corruption investigations and liquidity pressures that might result from delays in delivering audited financial statements, as well as Moody's expectation that the company will be challenged to make meaningful reduction in its very high debt burden over the next several years."

The number of people who defined themselves as being employed on zero hours contracts in their main job in the fourth quarter of 2014 was 697,000. This represented 2.3% of all people in employment, the ONS said. In the same period in 2013, 1.9% of all people in employment (586,000) said they were employed on a zero hours contract. The ONS said, external it wasn't possible to gauge how much of the rise was due to more people recognising they were on zero hours contracts.

The number of contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours where work was carried out was 1.8 million for the fortnight beginning 11 August 2014, according to official figures out this morning, external. The previously published estimate was 1.4 million for the fortnight beginning 20 January 2014. The ONS said the two figures are not directly comparable - but the earliest fortnightly figure available is the January one.

Mike Dennis from Cantor Fitzgerald says the appointment of Dave Potts is good news: "We believe the experience of retail an executive like David Potts with over 40 years of experience at Tesco and more recently as Retail Director of Tesco UK, puts Morrisons in a good position"

BBC Breakfast

Culture minister Ed Vaizey (you'll notice he's grown a snazzy new beard) tells BBC Breakfast that nuisance calls are "a very big issue" but that "it's important to recognise we have a legitimate direct marketing industry in this country." Nevertheless, he says a change in the threshold for what constitutes a nuisance call, which will come into force in April, will allow the UK's information watchdog to "go after some of the cowboys" following complaints. "Frankly the Information Commissioner [already] knows who a lot of these companies are," he says.