PayPal is an American multinational fintech company that offers a multitude of money transfer and associated services around the world. The company, which began life as Confinity in 1998, has enjoyed a first-mover advantage in the peer-to-peer payment industry for many years. Today, the company is consistently profitable and many assume that it will continue to grow and maintain market dominance as eCommerce and consumer finance evolves.
Google Pay
Google Pay is not that different from Amazon Pay, Samsung Pay, or even Apple Pay. However, it does come the closest to matching PayPal for functionality and, using the influence of parent company Google, has the ability to pose a serious threat.
Like PayPal, Google Pay users can send and receive money wherever and whenever they want for almost any purpose. Payments can also be attached to Gmail messages and merchants can also use it to manage their businesses and customer loyalty programs.
Payoneer is another American fintech company founded in 2005 that offers online money transfers, digital payment services, and also provides small and medium-sized businesses with working capital. The latter feature makes it popular among eCommerce businesses, online advertisers, freelancers, and even vacation rental owners.
Sending and receiving money between Payoneer is free up to a specified amount. Like services such as TransferWise, the platform also provides a branded debit card so that funds can be withdrawn from ATMs. The same card can also be used as a hybrid credit card, but fees tend to be higher when compared to bank credit cards.
Skrill
Skrill was founded as Moneybookers in 2001 by Daniel Klein and Benjamin Kullmann and, just six years later, was one of the top three online payment solution providers in Europe.
Skrill’s merchant fees tend to be lower than those of PayPal, and while the platform has millions of global users, it is not as recognized or widespread as its larger competitor.
Nevertheless, Skrill has an attractive product suite that incorporates forex, cryptocurrency, online games, sports, and betting. However, most enjoy the platform for its digital wallet that has zero withdrawal and deposit fees and the ability to send and receive money for free.
Stripe
Stripe bills itself as “the new standard in online payments” and has millions of businesses on its platform from the smallest startups to the largest corporations. Stripe offers a fully integrated suite of payments products that is more diverse and functional than what PayPal offers.
Stripe fees are also competitive at 2.9% + 30 cents on every transaction in the United States. It may also be more convenient for business owners and consumers since the checkout process is self-hosted. In other words, there is no need to leave a merchant’s site to complete the transaction using an intermediary like PayPal.
Stripe’s API, dubbed Stripe Connect, is also more flexible in terms of payment processing. Transfers between businesses, customers, and recipients are handled with fewer manually initiated transfers, which makes the API ideal for marketplace and software platform business models. This also reduces the likelihood of fraud or delays that result from account holds.
Key takeaways:
PayPal is an American multinational fintech company that offers a multitude of money transfer and associated services around the world. The PayPalplatform is multi-dimensional and enjoyed a first-mover advantage in P2P transactions, but competitors have emerged to exploit various segments of the consumer and business finance market.
Google Pay is not much different from several other payment platforms from other tech companies. However, it does come the closest to matching PayPal for functionality and can leverage the influence of parent company Google to become a serious threat.
Other PayPal competitors include business-centric payment platform Payoneer, English digital wallet provider Skrill, and financial services and software company Stripe.
PayPal makes money primarily by processing customer transactions on the Payments Platform and from other value-added services. Thus, the revenue streams are divided into transaction revenues based on the volume of activity or total payments volume—and value-added services, such as interest and fees earned on loans and interest receivable. In 2022, PayPal generated over $27.5 billion in revenues and over $2.4 billion in net profits.
PayPal is a two-sided marketplace which collects a transaction fee for each payment that happens via the platform. PayPal’s flywheel is based on creating a stronger and stronger network, where the company provides a suite of services to merchants, and consumers are given affordable digital payment solutions. In 2022, PayPal processed over $1.35 trillion in global payments.
PayPal processed $1.36 trillion in payment volume in 2022, compared to $1.25 trillion in 2021—a growth of 9% year over year. In 2020, PayPal passed a trillion-dollar in payment volume, with $936 billion processed via the platform.
In 2022, PayPal generated over $27.5 billion in revenue compared to over $2.4 billion in profits. Compared to over $25 billion in revenue and over $4.1 billion in revenue in 2021.
In 2022, of over $27.5 billion in revenue, over $25.2 billion came from transaction revenues. Thus, transaction revenue represented 91.6% of total revenue, while revenues from other value-added services (primarily comprising revenue earned through partnerships, interest and fees from merchants and consumer credit products, interest earned on certain assets underlying customer balances, referral fees, subscription fees, and gateway services) were over $2.3 billion, representing about 8.4% of PayPal’s total revenue.
The PayPal Mafia describes a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since become involved with other tech companies. While most know SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s association with PayPal, the company also has links with YouTube, LinkedIn, and Yelp, among many others. In addition to founding these generation-defining companies, the members of the PayPal Mafia are some of the richest men in Silicon Valley.
Acorns is a fintech platform providing services related to Robo-investing and micro-investing. The company makes money primarily through three subscription tiers: Lite – ($1/month), which gives users access to Acorns Invest, Personal ($3/month) that includes Invest plus the Later (retirement) and Spend (personal checking account) suite of products, Family ($5/month) with features from both the Lite and Personal plans with the addition of Early.
Started as a pay-later solution integrated to merchants’ checkouts, Affirm makes money from merchants’ fees as consumers pick up the pay-later solution. Affirm also makes money through interests earned from the consumer loans, when those are repurchased from the originating bank. In 2020 Affirm made 50% of its revenues from merchants’ fees, about 37% from interests, and the remaining from virtual cards and servicing fees.
Alipay is a Chinese mobile and online payment platform created in 2004 by entrepreneur Jack Ma as the payment arm of Taobao, a major Chinese eCommerce site. Alipay, therefore, is the B2C component of Alibaba Group. Alipay makes money via escrows transaction fees, a range of value-added ancillary services, and through its Credit Pay Instalment fees.
Betterment is an American financial advisory company founded in 2008 by MBA graduate Jon Stein and lawyer Eli Broverman. Betterment makes money via investment plans, financial advice packages, betterment for advisors, betterment for business, cash reserve, and checking accounts.
Braintree
Venmo is a peer-to-peer payments app enabling users to share and make payments with friends for a variety of services. The service is free, but a 3% fee applies to credit cards. Venmo also launched a debit card in partnership with Mastercard. Venmo got acquired in 2012 by Braintree, and Braintree got acquired in 2013 by PayPal.
Chime is an American neobank (internet-only bank) company, providing fee-free financial services through its mobile banking app, thus providing personal finance services free of charge while making the majority of its money via interchange fees (paid by merchants when consumers use their debit cards) and ATM fees.
Coinbase is among the most popular platforms for trading and storing crypto-assets, whose mission is “to create an open financial system for the world” by enabling customers to trade cryptocurrencies. Its platform serves both as a search and discovery engine for crypto assets. The company makes money primarily through fees earned for the transactions processed through the platform, custodial services offered, interest, and subscriptions.
Compass is a licensed American real-estate broker incorporating online real estate technology as a marketing medium. The company makes money via sales commissions (collected whenever a sale is facilitated or tenants are found for a rental property) and bridge loans (a service allowing the seller to purchase a home before the revenue from the sale of their previous home is available).
Dosh is a Fintech platform that enables automatic cash backs for consumers. Its business model connects major card providers with online and offline local businesses to develop automatic cash back programs. The company makes money by earning an affiliate commission on each eligible sale from consumers.
E-Trade is a trading platform, allowing investors to trade common and preferred stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, bonds, mutual funds, and futures contracts, acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020 for $13 billion. E-Trade makes money through interest income, order flow, margin interests, options, future and bonds trading, and through other fees and service charges.
Klarna is a financial technology company allowing consumers to shop with a temporary Visa card. Thus it then performs a soft credit check and pays the merchant. Klarna makes money by charging merchants. Klarna also earns a percentage of interchange fees as a commission and for interests earned on customers’ accounts.
Lemonade is an insurance tech company using behavioral economics and artificial intelligence to process claims efficiently. The company leverages technology to streamline onboarding customers while also applying a financialmodel to reduce conflicts of interest with customers (perhaps by donating the variable premiums to charity). The company makes money by selling its core insurance products, and via its tech platform, it tries to enhance its sales.
Monzo is an English neobank offering a mobile app and a prepaid debit card for consumers and businesses. It was one of the first app-based banks to enter the UK market, founded by Gary Dolman, Jason Bates, Jonas Huckestein, Paul Rippon, and Tom Blomfield in 2015. All were employees of Starling Bank, a similar neobank challenging the dominance of established financial institutions in England. The company enjoys many revenue streams: business and consumer subscriptions, interchange and overdraft fees, personal loans, and more.
NerdWallet is an online platform providing tools and tips on all matters related to personal finance. The company gained traction as a simple web application comparing credit cards. NerdWallet makes money via affiliate commissions determined according to the affiliate agreements.
Quadpay was an American fintech company founded by Adam Ezra and Brad Lindenberg in 2017. Ezra and Lindenberg witnessed the rising popularity of buy-now-pay-later service Afterpay in Australia and similar service Klarna in Europe. Quadpay collects a range of fees from both the merchant and the consumer via merchandise fees, convenience fees, late payment, and interchange fees.
Revolut an English fintech company offering banking and investment services to consumers. Founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, the company initially produced a low-rate travel card. Storonsky in particular was an avid traveler who became tired of spending hundreds of pounds on currency exchange and foreign transaction fees. The Revolut app and core banking account are free to use. Instead, money is made through a combination of subscription fees, transaction fees, perks, and ancillary services.
Robinhood is an app that helps to invest in stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies, all commission-free. Robinhood earns money by offering: Robinhood Gold, a margin trading service, which starts at $6 a month, earn interests from customer cash and stocks, and rebates from market makers and trading venues.
SoFi is an online lending platform that provides affordable education loans to students, and it expanded into financial services, including loans, credit cards, investment services, and insurance. It makes money primarily via payment processing fees and loan securitization.
Squarespace is a North American hosting and website building company. Founded in 2004 by college student Anthony Casalena as a blog hosting service, it grew to become among the most successful website building companies. The company mostly makes money via its subscription plans. It also makes money via customizations on top of its subscription plans. And in part also as transaction fees for the website where it processes the sales.
Stash is a FinTech platform offering a suite of financial tools for young investors, coupled with personalized investment advice and life insurance. The company primarily makes money via subscriptions, cashback, payment for order flows, and interest for cash sitting on members’ accounts.
Venmo is a peer-to-peer payments app enabling users to share and make payments with friends for a variety of services. The service is free, but a 3% fee applies to credit cards. Venmo also launched a debit card in partnership with Mastercard. Venmo got acquired in 2012 by Braintree, and Braintree got acquired in 2013 by PayPal.
Wealthfront is an automated Fintech investment platform providing investment, retirement, and cashmanagement products to retail investors, mostly making money on the annual 0.25% advisory fee the company charges for assets under management. It also makes money via a line of credits and interests on the cash accounts.
Zelle is a peer-to-peer payment network that indirectly benefits the banks’ consortium that backs it. Zelle also enables users to pay businesses for goods and services, free for users. Merchants pay a 1% fee to Visa or Mastercard, who share it with the bank that issued the card.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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