Product Management Confabulation
What Product Managers are talking about.
PayPal announced today that it’s launching “Tap to Pay” for merchants with an iPhone through the Venmo and Zettle apps in the U.S. PayPal, which owns both Venmo and Zettle, says the feature will allow businesses to accept contactless card and digital wallet payments directly on their iPhones with no additional cost or hardware. The […]
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PayPal is working on a new consumer app for its mobile customers, and suggested that it will be “ready” to take advantage of the new EU regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), when it goes into effect next month for tech “gatekeepers,” like Apple. For PayPal, one of the significant changes coming in the DMA […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
PayPal is gaining a new CEO, the payments giant announced this morning. Effective September 27, 2023, senior Intuit executive Alex Chriss will become PayPal’s President and CEO, replacing current CEO Dan Schulman, members of PayPal’s board shared this morning in a press release.
The appointment was made after a months-long CEO search process focused on finding a new leader for who had experience with global payments, product and technology.
Like Schulman, Chriss was a long-serving member of his former employer, having joined Intuit 19 years ago, then growing his responsibilities over time. Since January 2019, he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intuit’s Small Business and Self-Employed Group, responsible for more than half of Intuit’s revenue. He’s overseen a global organization with thousands of employees tasked with delivering products like QuickBooks and Mailchimp to thousands of customers.
In his most recent leadership role, he grew its customers and revenues at a compound annual growth rate of 20% and 23%, respectively, the board’s announcement states. He also led Intuit’s $12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp in 2021.
Chriss has the unanimous support of PayPal’s board and its CEO search committee, who were tasked with finding a replacement for longtime CEO Schulman, who informed PayPal of its plans to retire at the end of last year. CNBC reports Chriss was chosen from a pool of nine candidates. The board also met with over 20 investors, including activist investor Elliott Management, its report noted.
“With his depth of experience in product development, his passion for serving customers and his longstanding commitment to empowering and enabling small businesses, and his proven track record of developing and inspiring his team, Alex is the perfect leader to take PayPal forward and accelerate the company’s growth opportunities,” said John Donahoe, Chair of the PayPal Board of Directors, in a statement. “The Board search committee worked diligently and thoroughly to find the right candidate to take PayPal into its next stage of growth and expansion, and we are confident Alex is that person.”
Chriss joins PayPal at a time when the company has been restructuring, having announced in February it was laying off 2,000 full-time employees, or 7% of its workforce, citing the macroeconomic environment. It said its savings of roughly $600 million would be reinvested in projects like passwordless checkout, one-click in-app experiences, and leveraging AI for advanced checkout flows, among other things.
Donahoe also thanked current CEO Schulman for his “outstanding leadership during PayPal’s eight years of growth as an independent company.”
“Dan made many major contributions to PayPal and helped establish the strong foundation for the future,” he said.
Exiting CEO Schulman first joined PayPal in 2014, following its separation from eBay. Under his leadership, Paypal grew its revenues from $9.2 billion in 2015 to $27.5 billion in 2022, with total active accounts more than doubling to over 430 million in 200 markets. Total payment volume also increased 5x from $288 billion in 2015 to $1.36 trillion in 2022.
“I’m proud of what we have accomplished at PayPal and of the incredibly talented and committed people I work with every day,” said Schulman, in a statement. “Together, we have reimagined financial services and e-commerce, and worked to improve the financial health of our customers. PayPal makes a difference every day for its customers and communities and the Company is positioned for a great future. It has been a huge privilege to have the opportunity to lead this great company for the past 8 1/2 years. However, I’m at a point in my life where I want to devote more time to my passions outside the workplace. I remain 100 percent committed to working closely with the Board and my eventual successor for a smooth transition and to ensure we keep our positive momentum on track,” he said.
Schulman will remain on PayPal’s board until its next annual meeting of stockholders in May 2024.
Investors are reacting favorably to PayPal’s news, as the stock is up nearly 2% so far this morning.
PayPal is rolling out a stablecoin for payments and transfers, the company announced on Monday. PayPal USD (PYUSD) is issued by Paxos Trust Company and is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S Treasuries and similar cash equivalents. PayPal says the stablecoin is rolling out to US customers gradually.
Eligible U.S. PayPal customers who purchase PYUSD will be able to transfer PYUSD between PayPal and compatible external wallets, send person-to-person payments using PYUSD, fund purchases with PYUSD by selecting it at checkout and convert any of PayPal’s supported cryptocurrencies to and from PYUSD.
PayPal says that when you buy or sell cryptocurrency, including when you check out with crypto, it will disclose an exchange rate and any fees you will be charged for that transaction.
“PayPal USD is designed to reduce friction for in-experience payments in virtual environments, facilitate fast transfers of value to support friends and family, send remittances or conduct international payments, enable direct flows to developers and creators, and foster the continued expansion into digital assets by the largest brands in the world,” PayPal wrote in a press release. “Most of the current volume of stablecoins is used in web3-specific environments – PayPal USD will be compatible with that ecosystem from day one and will soon be available on Venmo.”
As an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, PayPal says PYUSD will be available to a growing community of external developers, wallets and web3 applications, can be easily adopted by exchanges, and will be deployed to power experiences within the PayPal ecosystem.
Image Credits: PayPal
A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to an external asset, such as the U.S. dollar. There is some controversy around stablecoins. Last year, Meta ended up abandoning its plan of having its own stablecoin called Diem after regulatory backlash. PayPal itself paused working on its stablecoin earlier this year amid regulatory scrutiny of crypto, as reported by Bloomberg at the time.
PayPal first introduced crypto services back in 2020 when it began letting users in the U.S. buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies. Then, in 2021, PayPal announced the launch of Checkout with Crypto, a feature that allowed consumers to check out at millions of online businesses using cryptocurrency. Last year, the company gave users the ability to transfer cryptocurrency from their accounts to other wallets and exchanges.
“The shift toward digital currencies requires a stable instrument that is both digitally native and easily connected to fiat currency like the U.S. dollar,” said PayPal CEO and President Dan Schulman in a press release. “Our commitment to responsible innovation and compliance, and our track record delivering new experiences to our customers, provides the foundation necessary to contribute to the growth of digital payments through PayPal USD.”
PayPal says Paxos will publish monthly reports detailing the assets backing PYUSD starting next month. Paxos will also publish a public third-party attestation of the value of PYUSD reserve assets.
PayPal’s shares fell 7% in extended trading last Wednesday as investors were disappointed by the company’s quarterly operating margin. The payment company’s adjusted operating margin for the quarter came in at 21.4%, missing its forecast of 22%.
Microsoft and PayPal are expanding their partnership to allow Xbox owners in the United States to use Venmo as a payment method for games, movies, TV shows, and apps from the Xbox store. Customers can also use the new payment method for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. When consumers pay with Venmo, they’ll have the option to purchase subscriptions or split payments upon purchase.
Additionally, PayPal’s Pay Later option is now available for the Microsoft Store in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. With PayPal Pay Later, eligible consumers can pay for their purchases evenly over the course of weeks or months in fixed amounts.
“At Microsoft, our commitment to creating the best experience for customers is at the center of everything we do, whether it’s for entertainment or productivity,” said Ajith Thekadath, Vice President of Global Payments at Microsoft, in a statement. “The addition of new PayPal payment method options delivers on this commitment and offers even more flexibility for customers with tools that work for them and their goals.”
Although Venmo is mainly known for being used to send or receive money from your friends and family, it has been expanding beyond this notion. For instance, Amazon announced last October that it would allow customers to make payments through Venmo on its platform.