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The Starling Bank app displayed on a person’s phone.

Adrian Dennis | AFP via Getty Images

LONDON — British online lender Starling Bank on Wednesday reported a sharp drop in annual profit, citing an issue with Covid-era business loan fraud and a regulatory fine over financial crime failings.

Starling, which offers fee-free current accounts and lending services via a mobile app, posted profit before tax for the year ending March 31, 2025 of £223.4 million ($301.9 million), down nearly 26% year-over-year.

Revenue at the bank totalled £714 million, up about 5% from £682 million a year ago. However, that marked a slowdown from the more than 50% revenue growth Starling saw in its 2024 fiscal year.

Profits for the year were impacted by a £29 million fine by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority over failings related to Starling’s financial crime prevention systems.

Starling also flagged an issue with the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) that was designed to provide firms with access to cash during the coronavirus pandemic.

Starling was one of several banks that were approved to lend cash to firms during the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. The scheme provided a 100% guarantee to lenders, making the government responsible for covering the full outstanding loan amount if a borrower defaulted.

However, Starling said it has since “identified a group of BBLS loans which potentially did not comply with a guarantee requirement” due to weaknesses in its historic fraud checks. After flagging this to the state-owned British Business Bank, the firm subsequently “volunteered to remove the government guarantee on those loans.”

“As a result, we have taken a £28.2m provision in this year’s accounts,” the bank said, referring to both the FCA fine and BBLS issue.

However, Starling said it held an Expected Credit Loss provision of £800,000 as of March 31 in relation to certain BBLS loans “where the guarantee provided under the BBLS guarantee agreement may no longer be available to the Company.”

“This is a legacy issue which we dealt with transparently and in full cooperation with the British Business Bank,” Declan Ferguson, Starling’s chief financial officer, said on a media call Wednesday.

Starling has operated as a licensed bank in the U.K. since 2018. It counts the likes of Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments and the Qatar Investment Authority as shareholders.

The firm, which was last privately valued in 2022 at £2.5 billion, faces hefty competition from both incumbent banks and rival fintechs like Monzo and Revolut.

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI’s viral AI video creator

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI's viral AI video creator

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OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.

Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.

Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:

  • First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
  • Login using your OpenAI account.
  • Click “Notify me when access opens.”

A screen will then appear asking for an access code.

Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.

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If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.

Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.

The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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OpenAI’s invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

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OpenAI's invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

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OpenAI now has two of the top three free apps in Apple’s App Store, and its new video generation app Sora has snagged the coveted No. 1 spot.

The artificial intelligence startup launched Sora on Tuesday, and it allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users and post them to a shared feed. Sora is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means users need a code to access it.

Despite these restrictions, Sora has secured the top spot in the App Store, ahead of Google‘s Gemini and OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT.

“It’s been epic to see what the collective creativity of humanity is capable of so far,” Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, wrote in a post on X on Friday. “Team is iterating fast and listening to feedback.”

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Sora is powered by OpenAI’s latest video and audio generation model called Sora 2. OpenAI said the model is capable of creating scenes and sounds with “a high degree of realism,” according to a blog post. The startup’s first video and audio generation model, Sora, was announced in February 2024.

OpenAI said it has taken steps to address potential safety concerns around the Sora app, including giving users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform. But some of the initial videos posted to the app, including one that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, have sparked debates about its utility, potential for harm and legality.

“It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed,” Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas.”

WATCH: OpenAI’s Sora 2 sparks AI ‘slop’ backlash

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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Jeff Bezos says AI is in an ‘industrial bubble’ but society to get ‘gigantic’ benefits from the tech

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Jeff Bezos says AI is in an 'industrial bubble' but society to get 'gigantic' benefits from the tech

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos speaks with John Elkann, CEO of Exor and chairman of Ferrari at Italian Tech Week on October 3, 2025.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

TURIN, Italy — Artificial intelligence is currently in an “industrial bubble” but the technology is “real” and will bring big benefits to society, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos said on Friday.

The term bubble usually refers to a period of inflated stock prices or valuations of companies that have disconnected from the fundamentals of a business. One of the most famous bubbles that burst was the 2000 dotcom crash where the value of internet companies plummeted.

Exor CEO John Elkann asked Bezos on stage at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy whether there were signs that the current AI industry is in bubble.

“This is a kind of industrial bubble,” the Amazon founder said.

Bezos laid out some of the key characteristics of bubbles, noting that when they happen, stock prices are “disconnected from the fundamentals” of a business.

“The second thing that happens is that people get very excited like they are today about artificial intelligence,” Bezos added.

During bubbles, every experiment or idea gets funded, he told the audience.

“The good ideas and the bad ideas. And investors have a hard time in the middle of this excitement, distinguishing between the good ideas and the bad ideas. And that’s also probably happening today,” Bezos said.

“But that doesn’t mean anything that is happening isn’t real. AI is real, and it is going to change every industry.”

This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for updates.

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