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A Mastercard debit card from U.K. digital bank Monzo.

Monzo

Monzo on Wednesday said it hit profitability for the first time this year, in a major milestone for one of the U.K.’s most prominent digital banks.

In its annual report for the year ending February 2023, Monzo reported net operating income of £214.5 million ($266.1 million), almost doubling year-over-year from £114 million.

Losses at the bank nevertheless came in at a substantial £116.3 million — though this was slightly lower than the £119 million net loss Monzo reported in 2022.

Still, the company managed to reach profitability in the first two months of the year.

In its annual report, Chief Financial Officer James Davies said Monzo is “now a business with diverse and stabilising revenue from a large, and growing, personal and business customer base.”

“Profitability was always a choice as we balance continuing to invest in growth with profitability,” Monzo’s CEO, TS Anil, told CNBC in an interview. “We could have chosen to be profitable a few quarters ago.”

Monzo is not the first digital bank to hit profitability. Starling Bank reached that milestone for the first time in 2021. Fellow fintech Allica Bank reached monthly profitability last year.

Monzo’s move into the black was largely thanks to a substantial increase in income from newer revenue lines, such as lending and subscriptions. Paid accounts now total 350,000.

Monzo declined to share a figure on how much of a profit it is making currently. The firm said it is on track to reach full-year profitability by the end of 2024.

Lending growth

Monzo’s strong revenue performance was driven by a bumper year for its lending business. This came against a backdrop of pain for U.K. consumers, who’re grappling with a harsh cost-of-living crisis as inflation soars.

Total lending volume reached £759.7 million, almost tripling year-on-year, while net interest income spiked by 382% to £164.2 million.  That was as usage of overdrafts, unsecured personal loans, and the Monzo Flex buy now, pay later service grew sharply.

Yet credit losses also surged dramatically, as the bank set aside a mountain of funds to deal with a sharp climb in anticipated defaults. Credit losses swelled to £101.2 million, a more than sevenfold increase from £14 million in 2022. 

It comes as consumers are increasingly turning to unsecured credit, such as credit cards and personal loans, to offset the impact of the rising cost of living. Research from consulting firm PwC indicates U.K. household debt exceeded £2 trillion for the first time in January.

Monzo’s boss disputed that the cost-of-living crisis had contributed to its revenue performance.

“The cost-of-living crisis was painful for everyone, but it really underscored the ways in which the Monzo product is incredibly powerful,” Anil told CNBC. 

He added the growing cost of living impacted how people used Monzo products, with usage of its savings pots and budgeting tools rising.

Meanwhile, Monzo said it continues to work with the Financial Conduct Authority regulator over an ongoing inquiry into the company’s alleged breaches of anti-money laundering laws.

“We expect it to take time to resolve,” Monzo said. “This could have a negative impact on our financial position, but we won’t know when or what the outcome will be for some time.”

UK ‘not holding us back’

The fintech sector has experienced increasing scrutiny since it grew in prominence after the 2020 Covid outbreak.

Major digital banks, from Revolut to N26, are receiving heightened attention from regulators. Revolut is reportedly set to have its application for a banking license rejected by the Bank of England, according to the Telegraph.

A number of tech bosses have expressed doubts about the U.K.’s bid to become a global tech power on the back of notable setbacks, including Cambridge-based chip design firm Arm’s decision to list in New York rather than London.

Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky earlier this month said his firm had encountered “extreme bureaucracy” in its experience applying for a banking license in the U.K. and said he would never list in the country. Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield, meanwhile, left London for San Francisco, citing a “much more accepting” environment for tech founders.

“From our perspective, this is a country where we got licensed, this is our home market; we’ve clearly learned this is where we can build a business of scale,” Monzo’s Anil said. “It’s not holding us back, I don’t think of it like that at all.”

Monzo now has 7.4 million customers in the U.K., making it the seventh-largest bank in the U.K. by client numbers. Total customer deposits now stand at £6 billion.

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CNBC Daily Open: SoftBank doubles down on AI amid warnings from ‘Big Short’ investor

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CNBC Daily Open: SoftBank doubles down on AI amid warnings from 'Big Short' investor

Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., left, and Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., during a fireside chat at the Nvidia AI Summit Japan in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.

Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SoftBank is selling its entire stake in Nvidia — but not for the reasons you might think.

In its earnings statement released Tuesday, the Japanese group said that it had sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October for $5.83 billion.

At first blush, this could be read as a sign that Nvidia’s high valuations are causing SoftBank some unease. And if SoftBank — which infamously pumped $18.5 billion into WeWork only to value it at $2.9 billion eventually — is tamping down on its usual optimism regarding its investments, then retail traders should probably pay attention.

Adding to such worries are comments by Michael Burry — who bet against subprime mortgages before they caused a whole financial crisis in 2008 — on major artificial intelligence companies.

Burry wrote Monday in a post on X that those firms are “understating depreciation” of AI chips, which “artificially boosts earnings — one of the more common frauds of the modern era.”  CNBC could not independently confirm that companies were practicing this.

This doesn’t seem to be SoftBank’s concern, however. A person familiar with the group’s sale told CNBC that it had nothing to do with AI valuations. On the contrary, cash from offloading Nvidia chips will be redirected to SoftBank’s $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI, the person said.

Burry said in his post that he will reveal “more details” on Nov. 25, and exhorted readers to “stay tuned.” That might not be enough enticement for SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

— CNBC’s Yun Li, April Roach and Dylan Butts contributed to this report.

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Lawmakers just released a much-awaited crypto market structure bill. Here’s what it means for digital assets and what comes next

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Lawmakers just released a much-awaited crypto market structure bill. Here's what it means for digital assets and what comes next

The U.S. Capitol is shown the morning after the Senate passed legislation to reopen the federal government on Nov. 11, 2025 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

The Senate Agriculture Committee has released a draft of its portion of a much-awaited digital assets market structure bill — a critical step toward accelerating institutional and retail adoption of cryptocurrencies. 

Unveiled on Monday by Agriculture Chair John Boozman, R-Ark., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., the bipartisan discussion draft lays the groundwork for creating guardrails for the crypto industry in the U.S. It also establishes guidelines for institutions that want to work with digital assets, from bitcoin and ether to tokenized financial instruments.

“This is the most consequential roadmap for how an institution is going to integrate digital assets into their business,” Cody Carbone, CEO of crypto trade association Digital Chamber, told CNBC. “It’s like the best possible step-by-step of what type of compliance rules requirements they would need to follow to work with crypto.”

Here are five key takeaways from the discussion draft.

1. Grants favorable regulatory status to some cryptocurrencies

The text classifies some of the largest digital assets by market capitalization such as bitcoin and ether as “digital commodities,” placing them under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s purview.  

This provision removes a major blocker to digital asset adoption for institutional fiduciaries, Juan Leon, an analyst at crypto-focused asset manager Bitwise, told CNBC.

“Compliance and risk departments will finally have a federal statute to point to,” Leon said. “This shifts the internal conversation … [and] it provides the legal certainty required to move assets into a formal, strategic allocation.”

It will also create “a starkly bifurcated market” consisting of regulated and unregulated tokens, with the former class of assets seeing “a massive influx of institutional capital, deep liquidity and a robust derivatives ecosystem.”

2. Requires crypto firms to segregate funds and manage conflicts of interest

The draft calls for crypto companies to “establish governance, personnel, and financial resource separation among affiliated entities that perform distinct regulated functions.”

Bitwise’s Leon interprets the provision as a challenge to the “all-in-one” business model that is common among crypto exchanges. According to those models, an exchange, broker, custodian, and proprietary trading desk are all wrapped up into one entity. 

In other words, digital asset firms could be required to keep their various businesses separated like traditional financial companies, according to Leon. The change would serve as “a foundational pillar for institutional adoption.”

3. Gives the CFTC more power to regulate digital assets 

The text gives more power to the CFTC, empowering it to work in tandem with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue joint rulemaking on crypto-related matters.

“There’s a lot more power or authority delegated to the CFTC to have jurisdiction over this industry,” Carbone said. 

The shift comes after the SEC for years served as the main regulator of digital assets, after it edged out the CFTC to gain authority over the industry. 

4. Allows the CFTC to collect fees

The draft calls for regulated entities to pay fees to the CFTC. Those fees would go toward registering digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers, in addition to conducting oversight of regulated entities and carrying out education and outreach. 

5. Establishes listing standards for tokens

The text calls for crypto exchanges to only permit trading of digital commodities that are “not readily susceptible to manipulation.”

It’s a provision that could reduce the number of “rug pulls” and other scams that are still common in some parts of the crypto industry, with the goal of establishing standards and building confidence in the market.

What’s next?

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s discussion draft is far from final, but it does offer critical insights into the direction of efforts to pass crypto-friendly regulations in the U.S., according to Carbone.

“It’s not final, it’s not done, but this gives a good sense of where Congress is going and what the final rules may be,” Carbone said. 

The committee will likely spend the next few weeks getting feedback on their draft, meaning it may be “almost impossible to get [a final version of this part of the bill] done by the end of the year,” he added.

However, that period will give lawmakers time to offer more concrete guidance on several issues that are bracketed – or not yet finalized – in the discussion draft. Those include provisions on anti-money laundering rules and regulations specific to decentralized finance players.

Several crypto players plan to work in tandem with lawmakers to help iron out those details, among others. 

“We’ve long said crypto is a bipartisan issue, and this draft from Chairman Boozman and Senator Booker reflects that,” Moonpay President Keith Grossman told CNBC. “It’s critical that legislation distinguishes between centralized intermediaries and decentralized systems, and we look forward to working with the Committee to get it right.”

The discussion draft is only one piece of larger legislative efforts to overhaul regulations for the crypto industry, according to Carbone. Ultimately, the text will be combined with the Senate Banking Committee’s draft on the digital assets market structure in a bid to create one comprehensive bill.

And although lawmakers are nowhere near the finish line in that process, crypto firms are finding other ways to work with regulators and other authorities to meaningfully advance their industry, Grayscale Investments Chief Legal Officer Craig Salm told CNBC.

“In the absence of comprehensive legislation, we’ve still seen meaningful progress on the regulatory front,” Salm said, adding that the SEC, Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department have recently provided guidance around staking in crypto exchange-traded products. “That said, thoughtful legislation will be critical to solidifying the foundation of the digital asset industry in the U.S. and unlocking even greater value for investors and consumers.”

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AMD’s Lisa Su sees 35% annual sales growth driven by ‘insatiable’ AI demand

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AMD's Lisa Su sees 35% annual sales growth driven by 'insatiable' AI demand

Lisa Su, chair and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

AMD CEO Lisa Su said on Tuesday that the company’s overall revenue growth would expand to about 35% per year over the next three to five years, driven by “insatiable” demand for artificial intelligence chips.

Su said that much of that would be captured by the company’s AI data center business, which it expects to grow at about 80% per year over the same time period, on track to hit tens of billions of dollars of sales by 2027.

“This is what we see as our potential given the customer traction, both with the announced customers, as well as customers that are currently working very closely with us,” Su told analysts.

Ultimately, Su said that AMD could be able to achieve “double-digit” share in the data center AI chip market over the next three to five years.

AMD shares fell 3% in extended trading.

The AI chip market is currently dominated by Nvidia, which has over 90% of the market share, according to some estimates, and which has given the company a market cap of over $4.6 trillion, versus AMD’s roughly $387 billion valuation.

AMD is holding its first financial analyst day since 2022, as the company has found itself at the center of a boom in data center spending for AI.

While companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in total on graphics processing unit (GPU) chips to build and power artificial intelligence applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, they are also looking for alternatives to increase capacity and control costs. AMD is the only other major developer of GPUs aside from Nvidia.

In October, AMD announced a partnership with OpenAI in which it would sell the AI startup billions of dollars in its Instinct AI chips over multiple years, starting with enough chips in 2026 to use 1 gigawatt of power.

As part of the deal, OpenAI could end up taking a 10% stake in the chipmaker. Su also highlighted long-term deals with Oracle and Meta on Tuesday.

AMD shares have nearly doubled so far in 2025.

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OpenAI is also helping AMD set up its next-generation systems based around its Instinct MI400X AI chips, which ship next year.

AMD has said that its chips will be able to be assembled into a “rack-scale” system where 72 of its chips work together as one, which is essential for running the largest AI models.

If AMD succeeds at its rack, it will catch up with Nvidia’s AI chips, which have been offered in rack-scale systems for three product generations.

Su said that the company now sees the total market for AI data center parts and systems hitting $1 trillion per year in 2030, representing 40% annual growth per year. AMD reported $5 billion in AI chip sales in its fiscal 2024.

That’s up from the company’s previous forecast of a $500 billion market in 2028 for AI chips. But the updated AMD figure also includes central processors (CPU), an important kind of chip that sits at the heart of a computer, but isn’t a pure AI accelerator like the GPUs made by Nvidia and AMD.

AMD’s Epyc CPUs are still the company’s most important product by sales. It primarily competes with Intel and some smaller Arm-based processors in the CPU market. AMD also makes chips for game consoles, networking parts, and other devices.

On Tuesday, although AMD focused much of its focus on its growing AI business, it told shareholders that its older businesses were growing too.

“The other message that we want to leave you with today is every other part of our business is firing on all cylinders, and that’s actually a very nice place to be,” Su said.

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