Why PayPal’s Comeback Plan Could Take Years, If It Works At All

With its stock down 80% from its pandemic high and its share of online payments slipping, the fintech pioneer and new CEO Alex Chriss need a win.among its founders and early employees. Its stock has fallen 80% from the $360 billion all-time-high market value it hit in July 2021; the share of ecommerce sales worldwide that flow through its branded PayPal button has been eroding; and some of the company’s recent attempts to rejuvenate its product lineup have gotten little respect from analysts.

Now Chriss, who was awarded a $42 million pay package by PayPal in 2023 , is hanging his hat on new strategies, including a “Fastlane” product to speed up guest checkout. But some analysts are skeptical of the impact it will have on profits and think the plan will take much longer to make a difference than investors realize.

That’s partially because monetization means trying to get customers to use Venmo’s credit card and to use the app like a neobank, for outgoing purchases —two categories where competition is already steep. Meanwhile, PayPal has had trouble integrating Venmo with the core PayPal platform to create synergy.

PayPal stopped reporting Venmo’s revenue after 2021, when it was roughly $900 million, likely a sign that growth has languished. Beyond Venmo, the integration challenges may also help explain why PayPal has had trouble maximizing returns from more of its acquisitions.The decades-old PayPal button accounts for a minority of the company’s total transactions but most of its profits. PayPal's three largest business segments are shown below., it has built a fast-growing business.

Chriss has said that 60% of ecommerce transactions are guest checkouts, and nearly 50% of those are typically abandoned. But PayPal has seen a much higher 80% of those who start a guest checkout continue to a purchase in early instances of customers using Fastlane.

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How High Interest Rates Turbocharged A Struggling Robo-AdvisorJeff Kauflin is a senior editor who leads Forbes’ fintech coverage, covering everything from digital banking and investing to payments and insurtech. He co-edits Forbes’ annual Fintech 50 and also writes about crypto. Jeff joined Forbes in 2016 and works in New Jersey.
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