PayPal leaves door open for acquisition after Stripe reports

• Key insight: PayPal's earnings beat analyst expectations amid rumors the company may be sold.
• Expert quote: "We remain open and objective. If we see levers that will create superior value to shareholders we will of course carefully consider them." —Enrique Lores, president and CEO of PayPal.
• Forward look: PayPal raised its outlook for the rest of 2026. 

PayPal on Tuesday balanced selling the company's growth strategy to analysts with signaling that it will listen to offers to buy the company.  
"We don't comment on market speculation," Enrique Lores, president and CEO of PayPal, said during Tuesday's earnings call. "We remain open and objective. If we see levers that will create superior value to shareholders, we will of course carefully consider them."

PayPal's earnings came amid reports Stripe has made offers to acquire PayPal. Stripe's offer was  $60.50 per share, or $53 billion, according to Reuters, which cited unnamed sources. PayPal's stock, which has declined more than 81% over the past five years, jumped about 26% over the past month amid the acquisition rumors.

"For PayPal, near term stock performance is likely to remain more dependent on deal related developments and investor perceptions regarding the value of the company's assets and long term earnings power," BofA said in a research note. Even prior to the reported buyout offers, Stripe had expressed interest in acquiring PayPal, an addition that would give Stripe a way to further expand into enterprise payments. It would also provide Stripe with a way to expand its agentic payments game.

But PayPal's board of directors reportedly determined the $53 billion offer from Stripe was too low, "The board and management team are open and have a clear responsibility to evaluate every opportunity that we have," Lores said Tuesday. 

PayPal's earnings

For the quarter ending June 30, PayPal reported $487 billion in total payment volume processed, up from 9% from the same quarter in 2025. The company also reported a net income of $1.104 billion down from $1.261 billion. PayPal's earnings per share came to $1.25, up from $1.21 the prior year. Revenue was $8.68 billion, up 5%. Analysts had projected EPS of $1.28 and revenue of $8.51 billion.

PayPal projected full-year earnings of $5.38 per share, up from $5.31 in 2025, and upgraded its prior projection of "low single-digit" revenue decline to "slightly positive" growth.

"Because of the work we have done over the last three months, we have a clear view of the value we can create in the coming year," Lores said. 

Lores' turnaround plan

Lores took over for Alex Chriss as PayPal's CEO in March, and has since embarked on a restructuring program amid a series of earnings reports that missed analyst projections.

Shortly after taking over as CEO, Lores announced a full company reorganization including three units: checkout solutions under PayPal, consumer financial services under Venmo and merchant payment services and crypto under Braintree.

A decline in branded checkout growth has contributed to PayPal's slump, a challenge the company has tried to address though investing in AI-powered checkout. Branded checkout volume grew 2% during the second quarter, down from 5% growth the prior year.

PayPal's plan includes a potential sale or shutdown of the company's venture capital unit, which will not continue in its current form. PayPal Ventures was founded in 2016 and has invested in digital asset fintechs such as Anchorage Digital and financial technology firms such as Plaid. It has invested more than $850 million in more than 80 companies.
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Another part of PayPal's turnaround strategy features an effort to expand the addressable market for its popular Venmo P2P app, which PayPal expanded outside of the U.S. in March. Making Venmo available to international users would boost the app's addressable market by 200 million users, according to PayPal. PayPal earlier made Venmo and its signature payment service became integrated with Venmo through a digital payment product called PayPal World.

"Branded checkout performance remains the most important underlying operating metric for PayPal. This quarter, the company faces a difficult comparison lapping 5% branded checkout growth in 2Q25, while checkout button competitive pressures and share losses across portions of online commerce remain ongoing concerns," analysts at BofA said in a research note.