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.
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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.
John Adams is executive editor of payments for American Banker. John interviews top executives in the payments, cryptocurrency and fintech... Read full bio
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