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PayPal Expands Venmo: Will It Become a Global Commerce Engine?

Zacks Investment Research - Mon Mar 30, 10:56AM CDT
PayPal Expands Venmo: Will It Become a Global Commerce Engine?

Paypal’s PYPL Venmo has become the preferred money movement platform for the young, affluent and digitally native consumers. This application enables the transfer of money between family and friends via mobile devices.  It is the key catalyst behind the solid growth in PayPal’s total payment volume (TPV), a key metric reflecting the volume and scale of payments processed on PayPal’s platform. Its growth indicates increasing consumer engagement, merchant adoption, and PayPal's expanding footprint in digital and offline commerce.

Venmo’s user base is large and growing, with more than 100 million total active accounts. In 2025, Venmo turned into a monetized commerce platform. PayPal’s revenue composition has shifted as more consumers are using Venmo for everyday commerce. Pay with Venmo and Venmo debit card revenues have grown twice over the past two years.

In 2025, Venmo revenues grew approximately 20% year over year to $1.7 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Venmo registered its fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, with TPV rising 13%. Its monthly active accounts (MAAs) reached 67 million, increasing 7% year over year. Venmo’s debit card TPV grew more than 50%, and MAAs were up 50%.

In March 2026, Venmo announced a major expansion, extending its peer-to-peer payment experience to users worldwide. Venmo users can now send and receive money to/from hundreds of millions of PayPal users across 90 markets. This marks Venmo's largest market expansion since the app’s launch.

Venmo launched Venmo Stash, an innovative rewards program designed to give customers more value that grows with every interaction.

How Are Block and Alphabet Doing in This Space?

Block XYZ offers Cash App, a digital wallet, to consumers for peer-to-peer (P2P) payments and investing. In July 2025, Cash App launched pools, a new P2P payment feature that enables group payments. Block is broadening its BNPL offerings via Afterpay by integrating installment payment features directly into the Cash App. Block's entry into the bitcoin market with the CashApp product is expected to contribute materially to the company's growth.

Alphabet’s GOOGL Google Pay is bundled under Google Services, which is its mobile payment and digital wallet application. Users link their debit cards, credit cards or bank accounts to the app and can make payments online, in apps or in stores using tap-to-pay (NFC) on their smartphones. Google services revenue grew 12.4% year over year in 2025.

PYPL’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of PayPal have declined 25.4% in the past three months, underperforming both the broader industry and the S&P 500 Index.

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, PayPal shares are trading cheaply, as suggested by the Value Score of A. In terms of forward 12-month P/E, PYPL stock is trading at 7.99X, which is at a significant discount to the Zacks Financial Transaction Services industry’s 16.91X. 

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

PayPal’s estimate revisions reflect a negative trend. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year 2026 EPS has been revised downward over the past two months.

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

PayPal currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Block, Inc. (XYZ): Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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