PayPal’s “Super App” to Offer New Crypto Functionalities
PayPal, the popular payment processing company, has indicated that its customers may not have to wait anymore to see new crypto-centric functions on their platform. Dan Schulman, PayPal’s CEO, stated today during the company’s Q2 2021 investor call that the company’s debut edition of its super app wallet was “code complete.” The head of PayPal indicated that in the next months the wallet will be completely functional in the USA.
The super app wallet will be offering high returns, early access to funds for direct deposits, messaging functionality, “additional crypto capabilities,” and more. Schulman claimed that each wallet will be “unique, driven by advanced AI capabilities and machine learning.”
PayPal has approximately 400 million active user accounts as of June 30, with a whopping $311 billion in total payment volume during 2Q21. Venmo, a PayPal subsidiary focused on payments, began allowing crypto trading in April and produced around $58 billion in aggregate payment volume in 2Q21.
“We’re one of the countable payments firms that facilitate users to treat cryptocurrencies as a source of financing. We’re also seeing a lot of bitcoin adoption and transactions on Venmo,” Schulman added.
A Good Year for Paypal
PayPal’s second-quarter transaction revenue increased 17 percent to $5.80 billion from $4.95 billion the previous year. The total transaction revenue has risen by 3% quarter over quarter, to $5.6 billion. Its transaction income includes revenue from the firm’s crypto buy, sell, and hold services; however, the company excludes crypto payments from overall payment volume.
In addition, the payments giant gained 11.4 million net new active accounts in Q2, down from 23.3 million last year and below the 14.5 million it added in Q1. Overall, PayPal outperformed expectations with adjusted earnings of $1.15 per share in the second quarter, exceeding FactSet’s average estimate of $1.12.
The company has also been growing its crypto staff. PayPal just hired a top policy executive from Chainalysis, the industry’s largest crypto-tracing business. Jesse Spiro, previously the head of policy and regulatory relations at Chainalysis, is moving to PayPal’s crypto division to focus on regulatory policy. He described the new position as “extremely attractive and exciting,” highlighting the digital behemoth’s scale and the opportunity to integrate cryptocurrencies into the payments sector.
PayPal stated earlier this month that it will raise the cap on crypto purchases for some US consumers from $20,000 to $100,000. The payments company initially stated that it will join the cryptocurrency market in October 2020, subsequently enabling qualifying clients to utilize cryptocurrency for trading and payments.
