Bill Ready, the former CEO of Braintree who helped PayPal build its digital strategy over the past six years, has announced plans to leave the company.
Ready, PayPal's chief operating officer, will depart Dec. 31, a PayPal spokesperson said Thursday afternoon, adding the company will not replace Ready but instead will split his duties among PayPal’s existing management team. Ready is leaving to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities outside the company, according to PayPal.
Ready joined PayPal in 2013 when it bought Braintree. He manages Braintree, Venmo and checkout experiences.
William "Bill" Ready, chief executive officer of Braintree Payment Solutions LLC, stands for a photograph after a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015. Braintree helps online businesses process credit card payments by providing a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing and credit card storage. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Bill Ready
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Braintree was a key acquisition for PayPal, an $800 million deal that gave PayPal access to APIs and other technology tools that improved the company’s ability to work with third party developers.
Braintree bought Venmo in 2012. PayPal's purchase of Braintree brought the socially-driven P2P app under the PayPal umbrella. Since then, PayPal has sought to make the app profitable, such as embedding it in general retail payments as it battles against the bank-driven Zelle P2P service.
More recently, PayPal signed on as a partner in Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, and Ready played a central role in PayPal’s announcement of its Commerce Platform, which is a PSD2/GDPR play designed to help businesses scale and connect with PayPal’s 227 million users.
Bank advocates and lawmakers have endorsed removing management considerations from the key supervisory ranking, arguing that it is too prone to subjectivity. But some policy experts say doing so could leave certain risks unchecked.
As it rolls out dozens of new products to up its game in stablecoins and artificial intelligence, the payment company is also working with sellers wishing to expand activities involving non-U.S. corridors.
Jim Richards, who served as the bank's head of anti-money-laundering compliance, says the Federal Reserve is wrongfully denying him compensation that was designed to keep him employed at Wells Fargo.
New Jersey-based ConnectOne Bancorp received FDIC approval for its merger with First of Long Island Corp; lending-services fintech Oportun makes changes to its board of directors; Associated Banc-Corp's Steven Zandpour will succeed David Stein as head of consumer and business banking; and more in this week's banking news roundup.
