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The app icons for Revolut and Monzo displayed on a smartphone.

Betty Laura Zapata | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Financial technology firms were initially the biggest losers of interest rate hikes by global central banks in 2022, which led to tumbling valuations.

With time though, this change in the interest rate environment steadily boosted profits for fintechs. This is because higher rates boost what’s called net interest income — or the difference between the rates charged for loans and the interest paid out to savers.

In 2024, several fintechs — including Robinhood, Revolut and Monzo — saw a boost to their bottom lines as a result. Robinhood reported $1.4 billion in annual profit, boosted by a 19% jump in net interest income year-over-year, to $1.1 billion.

Revolut also saw a 58% jump in net interest income last year, which helped lift profits to £1.1 billion ($1.45 billion). Monzo, meanwhile, reported its first annual profit in the year ending March 31, 2024, buoyed by a 167% increase in net interest income.

Robinhood's earnings by the numbers: Here's what you need to know

Now, fintechs — and especially digital banks — face a key test as a broad decline in interest rates raises doubts about the sustainability of relying on this heightened income over the long term.

“An environment of falling interest rates may pose challenges for some fintech players with business models anchored to net interest income,” Lindsey Naylor, partner and head of U.K. financial services at Bain & Company, told CNBC via email.

Falling benchmark interest rates could be “a test of the resilience of fintech firms’ business models,” Naylor added.

“Lower rates may expose vulnerabilities in some fintechs — but they may also highlight the adaptability and durability of others with broader income strategies.”

It’s unclear how significant an impact falling interest rates will have on the sector overall. In the first quarter of 2025, Robinhood reported $290 million of net interest revenues, up 14% year-over-year.

However, in the U.K., results from payments infrastructure startup ClearBank hinted at the impact of lower rates. ClearBank swung to a pre-tax loss of £4.4 million last year on the back of a shift from interest income toward fee-based income, as well as expenditure related to its expansion in the European Union.

“Our interest income will always be an important part of our income, but our strategic focus is on growing the fee income line,” Mark Fairless, CEO of ClearBank, told CNBC in an interview last month. “We factor in the declining rates in our planning and so we’re expecting those rates to come down.”

Income diversification

It comes as some fintechs take steps to try to diversify their revenue streams and reduce their reliance on income from card fees and interest.

For example, Revolut offers crypto and share trading on top of its payment and foreign exchange services, and recently announced plans to add mobile plans to its app in the U.K. and Germany.

Naylor said that “those with a more diversified mix of revenue streams or strong monetization of their customer base through non-interest services” are “better positioned to weather changes in the economy, including a lower rates environment.”

Dutch neobank Bunq, which targets mainly “digital nomads” who prefer not to work from one location, isn’t fazed by the prospect of interest rates coming down. Bunq saw a 65% jump in annual profit in 2024.

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“We’ve always had a healthy, diverse income,” Ali Niknam, Bunq’s CEO, told CNBC last month. Bunq makes money from subscriptions as well as card-based fees and interest.

He added that things are “different in continental Europe to the U.K.” given the region “had negative interest rates for long” — so, in effect, the firm had to pay for deposits.

“Neobanks with a well-developed and diversified top line are structurally better positioned to manage the transition to a lower-rate environment,” Barun Singh, fintech research analyst at U.K. investment bank Peel Hunt, told CNBC.

“Those that remain heavily reliant on interest earned from customer deposits — without sufficient traction in alternative revenue streams — will face a more meaningful reset in income expectations.”

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AI chipmaker Cerebras withdraws IPO

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AI chipmaker Cerebras withdraws IPO

AI chipmaker Cerebras pulls IPO after raising $1 billion

Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.

In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.

Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.

In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.

Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.

The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”

On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.

“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”

Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.

Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.

The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.

WATCH: Interview with Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.

David Ryder | Getty Images

Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.

The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.

“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”

At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.

The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.

Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.

Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.

Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.

Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.

The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.

While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.

On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.

Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here's what's driving the big move

Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.

CNBC

Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.

Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.

The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.

Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.

In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”

Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.

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