Coming together under one brand was a major theme at PayPal’s investor day Tuesday as the very large fintech predicted earnings would grow in coming years.
The fintech unveiled its newest merchant product, PayPal Open, a single platform that allows businesses to access a full suite ofcheckout solutions,including PayPal, Venmo, Fastlane, and Pay Later offerings.
Businesses will also be able to access PayPal’s global network of up to 400 million active accounts, including more than 92 million active Venmo customers. PayPal Open is expected to be available in the U.S. During the Spring and will expand to the UK and Germany later this year, a spokeswoman said.
A year ago, Venmo, the well-known mobile payments app that lets users send and receive money, operated separately from other divisions at PayPal, said Alex Chriss, president and CEO. Venmo’s go-to-market team was located in a different building, on a different floor from other teams, Chriss told a room filled with about 100 analysts and investors.
“It was like having a startup competing with everyone out there. Now we have one go-to-market team able to talk to the largest [businesses]…It’s a much different conversation,” said Chriss during his first PayPal investor day.
Also Tuesday, PayPal said that non-GAAP EPS would increase by a percentage in the low teens by 2027, and that the company has ambitions to grow by 20% longer term. It is also expecting transaction margin dollars to increase by high single digits by 2027 and more than 10% growth in the long term, according to a statement. (Transaction margin represents how much PayPal receives from each transaction it processes after expenses, Bloomberg said.)
“Our vision is for PayPal to be the commerce platform powering the global economy, and we have the scale, ubiquity, and data advantages to make that happen,” Chriss said in a statement.
In other news, JPMorgan Payments plans to offer Fastlane by PayPal for its merchant clients in the U.K. And Europe. And Jamie Miller, PayPal’s executive vice president and CFO, was named to the expanded role of chief financial and operating officer, according to a Feb. 25 regulatory filing.
PayPal is one of the world’s largest fintechs with a roughly $73 billion market capitalization. Shares for PayPal hit an all-time high of $308.53 in July 2021 but like many fintechs the stock has lost ground since then, though it was up 40% last year. Shares closed Tuesday at $74.07.
Good for crypto
Executives on Tuesday didn’t address the company’s stock price or any macroeconomic issues impacting the U.S. Some fintechs are expecting crypto trading to expand under the Trump administration, which has emerged as more supportive of digital assets. This contrasts with the Biden administration, which took a very cautious and regulatory approach to crypto.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies at PayPal, told Coins2Day that the change in administration is “very, very good for crypto.”
In 2020, PayPal joined the cryptocurrency market and began allowing customers to buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other virtual coins. One of the major complaints during the Biden administration was the lack of clarity when it came to how the sector is regulated. The Trump administration is expected to be much friendlier to crypto and in December appointed David Sacks, former PayPal COO, as White House A.I. And crypto czar.
PayPal got into crypto because the fintech believes there “is a decent chance that these become the base of the next generation of payment rails,” da Ponte said.
“The environment in the US has changed quite a bit. In the next year, we’re going to be allowing the US to catch up with the rest of the world,” da Ponte told Coins2Day on the sidelines of the investor day.
