PayPal Holdings plans a bigger push into the buy now, pay later (BNPL) consumer financing market vs. Affirm Holdings, Sweden-based Klarna Group and others, Chief Executive Alex Chriss said at a financial conference. PayPal stock has retreated 21% in 2025.
Consumer-lending firms compete with credit card issuers by offering installment payment plans.
"(BNPL) is a product we did over $30 billion in total payment volume (from merchants) last year," Chriss said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on Tuesday. "If you look at where our buy now, pay later showed up, it really showed up post-purchase. Once (consumers) had chosen the PayPal button, it was an instrument option inside of the PayPal experience. That's fantastic."
Chriss said he expects BNPL to emerge as "a big future growth driver for us."
Klarna To Launch IPO
"You're going to see a real effort from us on the BNPL side, something that we're going to be communicating in our go-to-market messaging from a consumer standpoint, as well as really starting to accelerate where pay later shows upstream in terms of merchant adoption," Chriss added.
"When we go and talk to consumers, we're seeing a younger demographic that is moving away from credit card. They've seen their parents go through the challenges and have said to us, 'I do not want a credit card. I want to pay through debit, I want to pay through buy now, pay later.'"
Klarna is expected to launch its initial public offering on Wednesday. Klarna, started in 2005, recently snatched one of Affirm's biggest partners, retailer Walmart.
Aside from San Francisco-based Affirm, Klarna also competes against Block's Afterpay, Sezzle and many others. Many top credit card issuers, such as Chase, now offer their own version of BNPL, creating more competition.
PayPal Stock Technical Ratings
PayPal's June-quarter earnings rose 18% to $1.40 per share on an adjusted basis. Revenue climbed 5% to $8.3 billion. Analysts expected PayPal earnings of $1.30 a share on revenue of $8.08 billion. Venmo revenue rose 20% amid new product initiatives, said the company, which did not disclose a dollar figure. Analysts continue to focus on PayPal's branded business — its online checkout button and digital wallet.
In Q2, total payment volume (TPV) processed from merchant customers climbed 6% to $443.5 billion, roughly in line with estimates. But BNPL volume increased 20%, the company said.
In early trades on the stock market today, PayPal stock dipped a fraction to 67.65. Affirm stock fell a fraction to 88.01. Meanwhile, Affirm stock has advanced 41% in 2025.
San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal has evolved from an online checkout option to a mobile shopping and person-to-person payments app.
Further, PYPL stock holds an IBD Composite Rating of 54 out of a best-possible 99, according to IBD Stock Checkup. IBD's Composite Rating combines five separate proprietary ratings into one easy-to-use rating. The best growth stocks have a Composite Rating of 90 or better.
Also, PYPL stock has an Accumulation/Distribution Rating of C. That rating analyzes price and volume changes in a stock over the past 13 weeks of trading. The rating, on an A+ to E scale, measures institutional buying and selling in a stock. A+ signifies heavy institutional buying, E means heavy selling. Think of the C grade as neutral.
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