Can PayPal Stock Hit $80?
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PayPal (PYPL) stock closed at $57.02. Reaching $80 would take a 40.3% rise, and would still leave the shares below the $90.80 they closed at on January 17, 2025. PayPal shares have risen 40% or more within a year in 6 of the last 10 calendar years. Its credit and Buy Now Pay Later business may decide whether that happens again. You probably see PayPal as a checkout button. Its stock lost 15.3% in a year while the S&P 500 gained 15.1%. So how big has PayPal’s credit and Buy Now Pay Later business become?
Financial Services Earn Close To 20% Of PayPal’s Margin
On the July 28, 2026 call, management said PayPal’s financial services business, which includes its credit and Buy Now Pay Later loans, accounts for close to 20% of its transaction margin. Management said this part of transaction margin is growing at a double-digit pace.
Financial services revenue is also outgrowing the rest of PayPal. Management expects it to grow at least twice as fast as the whole company’s in 2026. In the second quarter of 2026, Buy Now Pay Later payment volume grew 26%, and management said it is taking share from other payment methods.
Management is also signing up partners. At a leading fashion retailer that signed an exclusive Buy Now Pay Later agreement, payment volume went from declining to close to 10% growth in the second quarter. On the July call, management said PayPal would soon launch a consumer lending partnership with Amazon for Germany and Austria.
PayPal’s Branded Checkout Grew 2% In Q2 2026
Branded checkout, the PayPal button shoppers use online, grew its payment volume 2% on a currency-neutral basis in the second quarter, the same pace as the first. Management said PayPal’s growth in Europe is normalizing after years of very high growth rates, and it also pointed to more competitive intensity. PayPal stock trades at 10.2 times earnings against 22.9 for the S&P 500, and the price appears to reflect a slow checkout business.
Lending is management’s answer to that. Management expects financial services to become the largest driver of future transaction margin growth. If financial services keeps close to 20% of transaction margin, it would be worth about $3.1 billion of the roughly $15.6 billion management expects for 2026.
That is not yet enough to lift the whole company. Revenue from other value-added services was roughly flat at $850 million in the second quarter, as strong consumer and merchant credit was offset mainly by lower interest rates on customer balances. For the third quarter, management guided to only slightly positive growth in transaction margin.
What Could Stall PayPal’s Lending Business?
Loans that stop being repaid could. Management counted continued strong credit performance among the drivers of second-quarter transaction margin growth, so the lending gains so far have come while borrowers keep paying.
Management is also spending on the push. Its plan pairs a deeper focus on credit and financial services with large cost cuts. Management intends to reinvest those savings in growth, so the push relies on the cuts to pay for it. The stock has also fallen further than the market in most of its past sell-offs, including the latest: PayPal lost 27.0% during the 2025 US tariff shock, against 19.0% for an S&P 500 fund.
PayPal is scheduled to report its third quarter on October 27, 2026. The growth of its credit and Buy Now Pay Later revenue against the company’s total is the number to watch.
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