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PYPL · Forward model · Transaction revenues · Lores case

What has to happen in Transaction revenues

Model as of

This page changes Transaction revenues inside the complete PYPL model. Every other vertical, corporate programme and valuation assumption stays in the selected portfolio case.

PYPL forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $75.04 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $10.10B 91% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $52.61B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

The new chief executive's own frame, five months in: stabilise before you grow. Enrique Lores took over on 1 March 2026 and this was the quarter he put a roadmap against the story - refocus and rebuild the consumer network, modernise the platform and sharpen geographic focus, simplify the organisation, and only then shift from stabilisation to targeted growth investment. This case takes him at his word: branded checkout holds low-single-digit growth rather than rolling over, financial services becomes the largest driver of transaction-margin growth as he says it will, and the savings arrive on schedule. It is the bull case with the sequencing management actually described, dialled back because none of it has been demonstrated yet. It still does not require the take rate to stop falling, and it still does not assume a re-rating past 8x.

Transaction revenues

Basis quarter$7.83B
Final quarter$10.10B
Implied CAGR+5%
Final revenue mix91%

Ninety per cent of PayPal, and literally units times price: the payment volume that crosses the platform multiplied by the take rate PayPal publishes on exactly that definition. Volume is compounding - $486.4B in the basis quarter, +10% year over year and +9% currency-neutral, with Braintree/PSP mid-teens and Venmo TPV +14% - and the take rate is falling just as reliably, 1.68% a year ago against 1.61% now, because the volume growing fastest is the unbranded processing PayPal earns least on. Revenue growth is the residual between the two and has been running 3-7%.

Last four quarters
2025 Q3 $7.52B Reported
2025 Q4 $7.82B Reported
2026 Q1 $7.50B Reported
2026 Q2 $7.83B Reported
Branded checkout online (PayPal, Pay with Venmo, eBay)Branded offline - debit cards and tap to payVenmo P2P and Venmo debitUnbranded card processing through Braintree (PSP), enterprise and SMBCross-border, currency conversion, instant transfer and crypto fees
Units 487790/qtr growing +2.0% per quarter TPV in $M, deseasonalised: reported $486,448M / the 0.997 Q2 factor. A unit driver never sees the base.
Price per unit $16100 drifting −0.8% per quarter Revenue per $M of TPV. $7,832M / $486,448M = 1.61%, the take rate the deck prints for 2Q'26.
Transaction revenues

Latest: $10.10B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2021Q2 $5.80B
2021Q3 $5.61B
2021Q4 $6.38B
2022Q1 $6.00B
2022Q2 $6.27B
2022Q3 $6.23B
2022Q4 $6.70B
2023Q1 $6.36B
2023Q2 $6.56B
2023Q3 $6.65B
2023Q4 $7.28B
2024Q1 $7.03B
2024Q2 $7.15B
2024Q3 $7.07B
2024Q4 $7.59B
2025Q1 $7.02B
2025Q2 $7.44B
2025Q3 $7.52B
2025Q4 $7.82B
2026Q1 $7.50B
2026Q2 $7.83B
2026Q3E $7.86B
2026Q4E $8.40B
2027Q1E $7.97B
2027Q2E $8.27B
2027Q3E $8.30B
2027Q4E $8.87B
2028Q1E $8.40B
2028Q2E $8.71B
2028Q3E $8.74B
2028Q4E $9.33B
2029Q1E $8.84B
2029Q2E $9.17B
2029Q3E $9.19B
2029Q4E $9.81B
2030Q1E $9.29B
2030Q2E $9.63B
2030Q3E $9.65B
2030Q4E $10.30B
2031Q1E $9.75B
2031Q2E $10.10B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • Units here are millions of dollars of total payment volume and price per unit is revenue per $1M of TPV, so 487,790 x $16,100 is the 1.61% take rate on $487.8B of deseasonalised volume. The engine reapplies the seasonal factor on top, which is why the units input is deseasonalised and the price input is the as-reported take rate.
  • The 39.9% margin is transaction margin after volume-based expense and is ASSUMED, not disclosed. Volume-based expenses of $4,782M (transaction expense $4,385M plus transaction and credit losses $397M) are reported consolidated only; this model puts all of them on this line except the $74M credit loss the deck breaks out, which sits on the other line. The split is constrained to reconcile to the disclosed $3,900M of transaction margin dollars and must not be read as a company disclosure.
  • Seasonality is derived, not disclosed: ratio-to-centred-moving-average over the 21 disclosed quarters in two windows, giving [0.974, 0.997, 0.987, 1.041] with a window-to-window spread of 0.005. It decomposes cleanly - TPV factors [0.974, 1.002, 0.997, 1.026] times take-rate factors [1.001, 0.994, 0.988, 1.018] reproduce them within 0.003 - so the December lift is roughly two thirds holiday volume and one third holiday mix.
  • The Q4 factor has been decaying: 1.062 in 2021, then 1.043, 1.047, 1.048 and 1.026 in 2025, and almost all of the decay is in the take-rate half as PayPal spent on branded co-marketing and BNPL through the holiday. The risk in the published factor is therefore a Q4 overshoot rather than an undershoot; a creation judging that premium structurally gone would use 1.028 and give up about $110M of 2026 Q4 revenue.
  • US TPV grew 14% and international TPV 0% currency-neutral in the basis quarter, and international revenue fell 3% currency-neutral. The growth in this line is domestic and PSP-weighted, which is exactly why the take rate keeps falling.
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