PayPal’s Actions Convey Continued Expansion of Lending Business

PayPal announced its Q2 2018 earnings yesterday. Notably, total payment volume grew 27%, which is 1% higher than Q2 of last year. And the popular payment app Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, grew 78%, only slightly less than its growth of 80% from the last quarter. As expected by Wall Street analysts, revenue growth lagged total volume growth as Venmo is still largely unmonetized.

PayPal demonstrated continued commitment to its online lending division, PayPal Working Capital, when last month it made a significant investment in LendUp, a startup that offers loans to subprime consumers. This follows PayPal’s September 2017 acquisition of Swift Financial, for $183 million.  

In yesterday’s Q2 earnings conference call, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman spoke about the company’s consumer lending division, PayPal Credit. He said that the company has strengthened its partnership with eBay by signing an agreement to extend its long-standing consumer financing offer to eBay’s marketplace.

“With this agreement,” Schulman said on the conference call, “eBay will continue to accept and promote PayPal Credit through 2025.”

As PayPal continues to grow both PayPal Credit and PayPal Working Capital, it does have the advantage of strong name recognition. After all, it started back in 1998 as one of the first major websites on the internet. To emphasize this, during the conference call, Schulman cited a recent ComScore study that reported that 52% of mobile consumers said they made more online purchases because PayPal was offered. And one-third of all PayPal mobile customers surveyed said they will abandon a purchase if PayPal is not offered as a checkout option.

Todd Stone was a reporter for deBanked.