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PayPal has launched its cryptocurrency service in the U.K.
PayPal

LONDON — PayPal is launching its cryptocurrency service in the U.K.

The U.S. online payments giant said Monday it would let British customers buy, hold and sell digital currencies, starting this week.

It marks the the first international expansion of PayPal’s crypto product, which first launched in the U.S. in October last year.

“It has been doing really well in the U.S.,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto and digital currencies, told CNBC. “We expect it’s going to do well in the U.K.”

PayPal’s crypto feature lets customers buy or sell bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum or litecoin with as little as £1. Users can also track crypto prices in real-time, and find educational content on the market.

Like the U.S. version of the product, PayPal is relying on Paxos, a New York-regulated digital currency company, to enable crypto buying and selling in the U.K. PayPal said it has engaged with relevant U.K. regulators to launch the service.

A spokesperson for the Financial Conduct Authority, Britain’s financial services watchdog, was not immediately available for comment on the announcement.

Growing adoption

PayPal’s crypto service is similar to one from U.K. fintech firm Revolut. As is the case with Revolut, PayPal users can’t move their crypto holdings outside the app. Although Revolut recently started testing a feature that lets users withdraw bitcoin to their own personal wallets.

PayPal says its foray into crypto is about making it easier for people to participate in the market. “The tokens and coins have been around for a while but you had to be a relatively sophisticated user to be able to access that,” da Ponte said. “Having that on a platform like ours makes a really good entry point.”

The payments processor is one of many large finance companies taking a leap into the mostly unregulated world of cryptocurrencies. Despite ongoing concerns about price volatility, consumer protection and potential money laundering in the industry, major firms including Mastercard, Tesla and Facebook have been warming to crypto lately.

Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency, hit a record high of nearly $65,000 in April before tumbling below $30,000 in July as Chinese regulators extended a crackdown on the market. It has since recovered to a price of $48,400.

While PayPal started with crypto trading, the company is betting digital currencies will take a greater role in e-commerce in the long run. Earlier this year, PayPal started letting U.S. consumers use crypto to pay at millions of its online merchants globally. The firm also expanded crypto buying and selling to Venmo, its popular mobile wallet.

“We definitely have ambitions to continue to expand the product range in the U.S., the U.K. and other markets,” da Ponte said.

“We are very deliberate about starting with initial functionality, and then we’ll see where the market is going to take us. Different markets have different appetite for products.”

‘Britcoin’

The launch of PayPal’s crypto service in the U.K. also comes as regulators become increasingly wary about the rise of digital currencies. In June, the FCA banned the British subsidiary of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, citing a failure to meet money-laundering requirements.

“It makes sense that, as there is increased consumer interest and increased volume, the regulators are putting more attention into this space,” da Ponte said, adding that PayPal has built “strong regulatory relations.”

Meanwhile, central banks are exploring the potential issuance of their own digital currencies, as cash use in a number of developed countries dwindles rapidly. In April, the U.K. Treasury and Bank of England said they would evaluate the potential launch of a digital version of the British pound, dubbed “Britcoin” by the U.K. press.

Da Ponte said central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, were a “fantastic prospect” but it would take policymakers some time to iron out the key issues involved.

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Meta updates safety features for teens. More than 600,000 accounts linked to predatory behavior

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Meta updates safety features for teens. More than 600,000 accounts linked to predatory behavior

Facebook and Instagram icons are seen displayed on an iPhone.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Meta on Wednesday introduced new safety features for teen users, including enhanced direct messaging protections to prevent “exploitative content.”

Teens will now see more information about who they’re chatting with, like when the Instagram account was created and other safety tips, to spot potential scammers. Teens will also be able to block and report accounts in a single action.

“In June alone, they blocked accounts 1 million times and reported another 1 million after seeing a Safety Notice,” the company said in a release.

This policy is part of a broader push by Meta to protect teens and children on its platforms, following mounting scrutiny from policymakers who accused the company of failing to shield young users from sexual exploitation.

Meta said it removed nearly 135,000 Instagram accounts earlier this year that were sexualizing children on the platform. The removed accounts were found to be leaving sexualized comments or requesting sexual images from adult-managed accounts featuring children.

The takedown also included 500,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts that were linked to the original profiles.

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Meta is now automatically placing teen and child-representing accounts into the strictest message and comment settings, which filter out offensive messages and limit contact from unknown accounts.

Users have to be at least 13 to use Instagram, but adults can run accounts representing children who are younger as long as the account bio is clear that the adult manages the account.

The platform was recently accused by several state attorneys general of implementing addictive features across its family of apps that have detrimental effects on children’s mental health.

Meta announced last week it removed about 10 million profiles for impersonating large content producers through the first half of 2025 as part of an effort by the company to combat “spammy content.”

Congress has renewed efforts to regulate social media platforms to focus on child safety. The Kids Online Safety Act was reintroduced to Congress in May after stalling in 2024.

The measure would require social media platforms to have a “duty of care” to prevent their products from harming children.

Snapchat was sued by New Mexico in September, alleging the app was creating an environment where “predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes.”

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UK pushes Apple and Google for mobile changes to curb market power

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UK pushes Apple and Google for mobile changes to curb market power

A series of iPhone 16s on display inside the Apple store at Tun Razak Exchange in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Sept. 20, 2024.

Annice Lyn | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Britain’s competition regulators on Wednesday took aim at the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google, pushing the two companies to make changes to areas like their app stores.

On Wednesday, the Competition and Markets Authority proposed designating the U.S. tech giants as having a “strategic market status” or SMS, after opening an investigation into the matter in January.

This designation is given to a large company that has “substantial and entrenched market power” and a “position of strategic significance” with respect to a digital activity in the U.K.

The CMA can force firms that are branded as having SMS to change or stop specific behaviors or practices in order to address competition concerns.

Apple and Google both took issue with the CMA’s proposals, effectively saying they would be bad for user security and consumers overall.

What has the CMA taken issue with?

Britain’s regulator focused on investigating Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems, app store and browser. One aspect of the investigation looked at whether there are barriers that may prevent other competitors from offering rival products and services on the U.S. tech giants’ mobile platforms.

Another part of the probe examined whether Apple and Google are using their position in operating systems, app distribution or browsers to favor its own apps and services.

And the final aspect of the investigation studied whether Apple and Google require developers to sign up to “unfair terms and conditions” in order to distribute their apps via the respective app stores.

The CMA on Wednesday said consumers and businesses have raised concerns about different issues across the two companies’ mobile ecosystems. But some of these include “inconsistent and unpredictable app review processes” and “inconsistent app store search rankings” that may favor the tech giants’ own apps.

The British regulator also took aim at the up to 30% commission charged by the firms on some in-app purchases and restrictions on developers telling customers about cheaper ways to pay or to subscribe outside of the app.

As part of Google and Apple’s review process to allow apps on to their app stores, developers raised concerns that the tech companies could have access to commercially sensitive data of their competitors, the CMA said.

Google’s Android operating system commands just over 61% market share in the U.K., while Apple’s iOS has just over a 38%, according to Kantar data. Google runs the Google Play store and Chrome browser, and Apple has its App Store and Safari browser.

What changes does the CMA want?

The CMA has laid out immediate changes that it wants to see, alongside some longer-term steps. The regulator said that it wants Apple to review apps for distribution in a “fair, objective and transparent manner.” This could include remedies such as Apple explaining delays or rejections and creating an avenue for businesses to raise concerns about the process.

Apple could also be made to publish a methodology for how it ranks apps in the App Store. The CMA has laid out similar remedies for Google.

The regulator is looking at how Apple and Google can make it easy for users to be steered by developers outside of an app to pay for services and products, thus avoiding their respective in-app purchase fee.

The CMA is also looking into ways to make it easier for users to transfer data between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android to make switching easier.

For next year, the CMA said it is still looking at whether to require Apple to allow alternative app stores in iOS and the company’s iPad software. The regulator also said it is exploring whether to force Apple to allow users to download apps directly from a developer’s own website, a practice known as “sideloading.”

Apple and Google react

Apple said in a statement that the proposals from the U.K. “would undermine the privacy and security protections that our users have come to expect, hamper our ability to innovate, and force us to give away our technology for free to foreign competitors,”

“We will continue to engage with the regulator to make sure they fully understand these risks.”

Google’s Senior Director of Competition Oliver Bethell noted that both the Google Chrome browser and Android’s operating system are built on open-source code.

“These offerings enable great choice, security and innovation for users. That’s why today’s announcement is both disappointing and unwarranted,” Bethell said.

The Google executive highlighted ways in which Android has helped British developers and the economy.

“It is therefore crucial that any new regulation is evidence-based, proportionate and does not become a roadblock to growth in the U.K We remain committed to constructive engagement with the CMA for the duration of this process,” Bethell said.

U.S. tech giants face European scrutiny

Apple and Google’s regulatory problems on the continent of Europe continue to deepen.

In April, European Union regulators hit Apple with a 500 million euro ($587 million) fine for breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — a landmark law aimed at tackling tech competition issues.

Apple has been forced to make a number of changes to the way it operates in the EU this year. These include allowing developers to tell their users about cheaper alternatives and bypass Apple’s in-app payment system.

However, some of the changes have yet to satisfy the EU regulators. Apple in June revealed a complex system of App Store fees in a bid to comply with the DMA and avoid the 500 million euro fine. Apple plans to appeal the fine.

Apple has long argued that forced regulator-led changes to its operations could lead to privacy and security issues for users and confusing business terms for developers

In March, Google parent Alphabet meanwhile was accused by the EU of failing to comply with the DMA. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Google is treating its own search services more favorably than those of rivals. The Commission added that Google’s app store is preventing developers from steering consumer to other channels for better offers.

The search giant is also looking to fight a 4.1 billion euro fine that has stemmed from an antitrust case dating back to 2018.

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Texas Instruments’ stock falls on weak forecast

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Texas Instruments' stock falls on weak forecast

The Texas Instruments headquarters in Dallas, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2024.

N. Johnson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Texas Instruments reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings. But the stock fell in extended trading due to a third-quarter forecast that missed estimates.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: $1.41 vs. $1.35 expected
  • Revenue: $4.45 billion vs. $4.36 billion expected

Texas Instruments said it expects current-quarter earnings between $1.36 and $1.60 per share, while analysts were looking for $1.50 per share. The company forecast revenue of $4.45 billion to $4.8 billion, for a midpoint of $4.625 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $4.59 billion.

Revenue increased 16% in the second quarter from $3.82 billion in the same period a year earlier. Sales in the company’s analog chip business, its largest, rose 18% to $3.5 billion, surpassing the StreetAccount estimate of $3.39 billion for the segment.

Net income rose 15% to $1.3 billion, or $1.41 per share, from $1.13 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Texas Instruments is a key supplier of legacy semiconductors for automotive and industrial uses.

As of Tuesday’s close, Texas Instruments shares were up 15% for the year on broader market optimism for chips. In June, the company said it would spend $60 billion to expand chipmaking factories in Texas and Utah, a move that was praised by the Trump administration in its push to bring more technology manufacturing to the U.S.

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