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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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Amazon’s cloud unit records highest profit margin in at least a decade

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Amazon's cloud unit records highest profit margin in at least a decade

Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 21, 2024.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon said revenue in its cloud unit increased 19% in the third quarter, just missing analyst estimates.

Revenue at Amazon Web Services totaled $27.45 billion, according to a statement Thursday, while Wall Street was expecting $27.52 billion, based on StreetAccount estimates. Year-over-year growth has accelerated for five consecutive quarters.

The artificial intelligence portion of AWS is in the billions of dollars in annualized revenue, more than doubling year over year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who previously led AWS, said on a call with analysts.

“I believe we have more demand than we could fulfill if we had even more capacity today,” Jassy said. “I think pretty much everyone today has less capacity than they have demand for, and it’s really primarily chips that are the area where companies could use more supply.”

AWS leads the cloud infrastructure market over Google and Microsoft and is an important source of profit for Amazon.

On Tuesday, Google parent Alphabet said revenue from Google Cloud, which includes cloud applications as well as infrastructure, totaled $11.35 billion, up 35%. Microsoft said Wednesday that revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 33%.

AWS recorded $10.45 billion in operating income, representing 60% of its parent’s profit. Analysts expected $9.15 billion.

The unit’s operating margin came in at 38%, the widest for AWS since at least 2014. Google Cloud reported an operating margin of 17%.

“We’re being very measured in our hiring,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s finance chief, said on the call.

During the quarter, Oracle said it will bring database services to AWS.

“If this is successful, we would love to find more pieces of their application stack that could run well in AWS and help customers do that,” AWS CEO Matt Garman told CNBC in a September interview.

Also in the quarter, AWS announced plans to discontinue some services, including code-repository tool CodeCommit. Garman told TechCrunch that AWS “can’t invest in everything.”

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Amazon’s advertising business grew 19% in the third quarter

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Amazon's advertising business grew 19% in the third quarter

Dominika Zarzycka | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Amazon’s online advertising business brought in $14.3 billion in the third quarter, up 19% year over year, in line with analysts’ estimates of $14.3 billion.

The Seattle tech giant revealed the financial results of its growing advertising unit as part of its latest earnings report Thursday. Amazon’s overall third-quarter sales were $158.9 billion, ahead of analysts’ estimates of $157.2 billion.

Amazon’s online advertising business is still a fraction of the company’s overall business, but its growth over the years has made it a major competitor to Alphabet and Meta, which lead the digital advertising market. Alphabet’s Google currently represents 27.7% of the worldwide digital advertising market, followed by Meta at 22.8% and Amazon with 8.8%, according to data provided to CNBC by Emarketer.

Meta’s third-quarter advertising revenue came in at $39.9 billion, which was up 19% compared with the year prior. That was slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations of $39.49 billion, according to StreetAccount. Ads accounted for 98.3% of Meta’s overall third-quarter revenue.

Alphabet generated $65.85 billion in third-quarter ad revenue, the company reported Tuesday. That was up 10% from $59.65 billion the year prior. Additionally, advertising sales for the company’s YouTube unit rose 12% year over year to $8.92 billion.

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Intel shares jump 9% on earnings beat, uplifting guidance

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Intel shares jump 9% on earnings beat, uplifting guidance

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger holds an artificial intelligence processor as he speaks during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 4, 2024.

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Intel shares rose 9% in extended trading on Thursday after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected revenue and issued quarterly guidance that topped estimates.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: Loss of 46 cents adjusted
  • Revenue: $13.28 billion vs. $13.02 billion expected

Intel’s revenue declined 6% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Sept. 28, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $16.99 billion, or $3.88 per share, compared with net earnings of $310 million, or 7 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

As part of its cost reduction plan, Intel recognized $2.8 billion in restructuring charges during the quarter. There were also $15.9 billion in impairment charges.

Intel has been mired in an extended slump due to market share losses in its core businesses and an inability to crack artificial intelligence. CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed plans during the quarter to turn the company’s foundry business into an independent subsidiary, a move that would enable outside funding options.

CNBC reported that Intel had engaged advisors to defend itself against activist investors. In late September, news surfaced that Qualcomm reached out to Intel about a possible takeover.

The Client Computing Group that sells PC chips recorded $7.33 billion in revenue, down about 7% from a year earlier and below the $7.39 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

Revenue from the Data Center and AI segment came to $3.35 billion, which was up about 9% and more than the $3.17 billion consensus from StreetAccount.

Intel called for fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share and revenue between $13.3 billion and $14.3 billion. Analysts had expected 8 cents in adjusted earnings per share and $13.66 billion in revenue.

During the quarter, Intel announced the launch of Xeon 6 server processors and Gaudi artificial intelligence accelerators.

As of Thursday’s close, Intel shares were down about 57% in 2024, while the S&P 500 index had gained 20%.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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