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The Klarna logo displayed on a smartphone.
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LONDON — Swedish fintech firm Klarna on Monday said it is introducing a number of changes to its product in the U.K., as regulators in the country prepare to tighten regulation on the fast-growing “buy now, pay later” industry.

One of the biggest updates Klarna is implementing is stronger credit checks; the company said a new feature will let users share income and spending data from their bank accounts to determine whether they can afford future repayments.

Klarna said it will also launch the ability for users to make instant payments through its platform, as well as clearer language at checkout letting users know they are taking out a loan with the firm and that they may be penalized for missing a payment.

Klarna is one of the world’s largest buy now, pay later, or BNPL, operators. Such services let shoppers split their purchases into monthly installments, typically interest-free. In 2020, about $97 billion of global e-commerce transactions were processed through a BNPL platform.

Major companies have made a leap into the market, including PayPal, Square and Mastercard.

While BNPL companies tout their offerings as a fairer alternative to credit cards, critics are concerned they may be encouraging people to spend more than they can afford. There are also worries that users of these services could be unaware they are getting into debt.

The rapid growth of the sector during the coronavirus pandemic has prompted regulatory scrutiny in the U.K. The British government is expected to release a consultation on its plans later this month.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski conceded last month that the firm “could have done a better job” in the U.K. by focusing on areas other than credit.

“We firmly believe that most of the time, people should pay with the money they have, but there are certain times where credit makes sense,” Siemiatkowski said in a statement Monday.

“The changes we are announcing today mean that consumers are fully in control of their payments whether they pay now or pay later.”

Klarna, a regulated bank in Sweden, has so far raised a total of $3.7 billion in funding from investors including Japan’s SoftBank, China’s Ant Group and U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg. The firm was last valued at nearly $46 billion and is expected to go public in the next year or two.

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Nvidia deepens India footprint with $2 billion deep tech alliance to mentor AI startups

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Nvidia deepens India footprint with  billion deep tech alliance to mentor AI startups

Co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang spoke to journalists during a trip to Beijing in July.

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Nvidia will help train and mentor emerging deep tech startups in India as a founding member of a $2 billion investment alliance, deepening its presence in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem.

The U.S. chipmaker has joined the India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA) — a group of private equity and venture capital investors pledging $2 billion for deep tech investments — as a founding member. Deep tech startups are an umbrella term for emerging companies in semiconductors, space, AI, biotech, robotics, and energy.

The world’s most valuable company will offer technical talks and training through its Nvidia Deep Learning Institute to emerging startups in India.

Nvidia wants to “provide guidance on AI systems, developer enablement, and responsible deployment, and to collaborate with policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs,” Vishal Dhupar, Nvidia’s managing director of South Asia, said.

Nvidia did not disclose any financial investment, timeline, or training targets, and did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

“Nvidia’s depth of expertise in AI systems, software, and ecosystem-building will benefit our network of investors and entrepreneurs,” said Sriram Viswanathan, founding executive council member of the IDTA.

He told CNBC that the pace of innovation is accelerating in India and there could be a “significant number of Indian deep tech companies of global repute” in the next five years.

The Indian government is also actively encouraging research and innovation in the deep tech space through major initiatives, including over 100 billion rupees ($1.1 billion USD) under its AI Mission and a separate 1 trillion rupees ($11.2 billion) Research, Development and Innovation Scheme Fund targeting deep tech companies.

On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country will host the AI Impact Summit in February next year.

The event is likely to see the participation of heads of state and top policymakers, along with business leaders such as Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of NVIDIA, and Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind.

Nvidia’s commitment in India coincides with rising global interest in India’s AI market, where OpenAI counts the country as its second-largest user base. U.S. rivals are also deepening ties: Google recently pledged $15 billion to build an AI hub in the southern city of Visakhapatnam.

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

Some stocks deserve a higher premium, says Jim Cramer

CNBC’s Jim Cramer suggested Wall Street is too fixated the on large valuations of certain tech and speculative stocks, chalking up Tuesday’s market-wide decline in part to Palantir‘s nearly 8% loss despite strong earnings results.

“The larger issue is that we’re at the moment where money managers, when asked if the market’s too expensive, immediately think of the high-flying speculative stocks or those in the high-growth artificial intelligence column, and so they warn you away from the entire asset class,” he said. “These guys don’t think of the other 334 stocks in the S&P 500 that sell for less than 23 times earnings — those aren’t outrageous.”

Declines in Palantir and other artificial intelligence companies helped bring stocks down on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 losing 1.17%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 0.53% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sinking 2.04%. Palantir managed to beat the estimates and offer solid guidance, citing growth in the artificial intelligence business. But investors worried broadly about the huge valuations of tech giants that have been leading the market to new heights.

Investors who saw Palantir as their “north star” were alarmed by its big pullback after a great quarter, according to Cramer. The fears triggered “a raft of selling” as these investors questioned the market as a whole, he continued.

Palantir can be a tough stock to classify, Cramer suggested, saying it straddles two different market segments — one centered around tech and artificial intelligence, and another focused on speculative stocks. He noted that the data-driven software company is very lucrative and fast growing, and it “defies easy description.” He listed off a number of its business arms — including its work as a defense contractor and as a consultant for companies looking to modernize and improve profitability.

To Cramer, it’s reasonable to consider that there’s nothing wrong with Palantir, and it just needs “to cool off in order to grow into its market capitalization.”

“Sure, there are indeed some stocks that are visibly overvalued, and when you pull them apart, many of these valuations can be justified, some can’t,” he said. “I think the Magnificent Seven can be justified on the pace of the growth that’s ahead of them. Same, ultimately, with Palantir.”

Nearly a million workers are unpaid during shutdown, Wall Street can't ignore it, says Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing

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Bitcoin retail investor at ‘max desperation,’ says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

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Bitcoin retail investor at 'max desperation,' says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

'I think crypto market is close to a bottom': Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan

Bitcoin‘s fall below $100,000, its lowest level since June, has sparked fears that the worst is yet to come, another so-called crypto winter (a prolonged bear market in cryptocurrencies) that the market wrestles with every time digital currencies sell off hard in a short period of time.

But Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says that while the retail investor is in “max desperation” mode, he sees that as a reason to bet that a bottoming in crypto prices may materialize sooner rather than later. With Wall Street institutional investor and financial advisor support for bitcoin, and growth in crypto ETFs, he is even willing to go out on a limb and say that amid the heavy selling a new record high for bitcoin before the end of the year isn’t unreasonable.

“It’s almost a tale of two markets,” he said on CNBC’s “Crypto World” on Tuesday. “Crypto retail is in max desperation. We’ve seen leverage blowouts. … the market for sort of crypto native retail is just more depressed than I’ve ever seen it,” he said.

But Hougan believes more crypto trading will continue to shift into an institutionally driven market, “and interestingly, that market is still bullish,” he said.

“When I go out and speak to institutions or financial advisors, they’re still excited to allocate to an asset class that if you pan back and look over the course of a year, is still delivering very strong returns. So my view of the market is we have to get through this retail flush out. We have to hit bottom from a sentiment perspective. I think we’re very close to that,” he added.

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Price of bitcoin and ether over the past year.

The boom in crypto exchange-traded fund launches, including iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is changing the investor composition, and while week-to-week flows into these ETFs have slowed since the second quarter of the year, “we continue to see strong inflows into bitcoin,” Hougan said.

He expects more support to materialize for crypto into the end of the year among financial advisors who will look past the current dip and see an “opportunity to show their clients that they understand where this market is going.”

Bitwise’s own Solana staking ETF (BSOL) brought in over $400 million in flows in its first week, he said, though it has sold off sharply in the recent crypto downturn, with a near 20% loss since its Oct. 28 debut.

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This chart is showing BSOL 5 days

Last week, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor told CNBC he thinks bitcoin could reach $150,000 by the end of the year, one among several recent bullish calls on crypto that for now at least look ill-timed. But Hougan said he doesn’t think it’s an outlandish call even as bitcoin hovers near a six-month low.

“I think bitcoin could easily end the year at new all-time highs,” Hougan said. “So that means getting north of about $125,000 up to $130,000. Whether we’ll get all the way to $150,000, we’ll have to see.”

“I do think the sellers are nearing exhaustion and the buyers are still relatively hungry. And when those two things sort of cross paths, again, I think we could end the year close to or at new all-time highs. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get to Saylor’s target as well,” he said.

Institutional investors, whom Hougan described as “more maybe even keeled about what’s going on at a fundamental level in crypto” will start to drive the market forward. “But we do have to finish this washout of retail sentiment … I think we’re closer to the end of that than the beginning, but … there always could be a little bit more downside.”

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