PayPal Business Loan/Working Capital Volume Down By Half Since Pullback

PayPal’s small business financing volume has been roughly reduced by half since the company officially announced a pullback in 2023.

For example, consider that PayPal purchased only $774M in merchant receivables through the first half of 2024 vs $1.4B purchased in the first half of 2022. Though these numbers are not originations per se they are proxy indicators that show just how much has changed.

Of the $774M purchased in the first half of 2024, only $355M of it was from the 2nd quarter. Meanwhile, one of its competitors originated $918M in the same quarter.

Back in early 2022, PayPal announced that it was then one of the top five lenders to small businesses in the United States. It claimed to be doing $4B a year in originations in 2019, at that time making it arguably the largest online business lender in the country. Today the leading online small business lenders are Block (Square Loans) and Enova (OnDeck & Headway Capital).