NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, April 27, 2018

There was a lot going on during PayPal’s quarterly earnings report yesterday (April 25), as the original “Pay” player managed to beat analyst expectations nearly across the board and even forecast a better-than-expected result for the rest of the year.

Growth was the big story: PayPal saw transactions on its platform increase, its user base swell by an additional 8 million active users and its P2P platform Venmo rapidly grow its footprint. Even the number of partnerships the company is pursuing with other big players in the ecosystem is climbing.

Recent days have seen Samsung and Barclays added to an lineup that already includes players like Visa, Mastercard, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Chase — just to name a few.

While the growth story was key to PayPal’s post-earnings victory lap, the firm was also quick to point out it has more to do when it comes to growing its platform. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman told investors that the company is committed to making sure that growth hits everyone — particularly those who are currently shut out of traditional financial services markets.

“We firmly believe as a company that everyone should have access to affordable, convenient, secure and low-cost financial services,” Schulman said, noting this vision does not — as some have speculated in the past — speak to an overwhelming desire on PayPal’s part to become a bank or to try to replace bank-based services.

Photo courtesy of Ava Systems.