PayPal reported a challenging Q4 with branded checkout TPV growth slowing to 1%, largely due to macro headwinds and slower merchant integrations. Management is overhauling its approach to focus on a few key areas (experience, presentment, selection) and is making investments in 2026 that will pressure near-term margins. They also withdrew long-term guidance and announced a CEO change. Online branded checkout TPV growth decelerated to 1% in Q4 from 5% in Q3, attributed to US retail weakness, issues in Germany, and deceleration in high-growth verticals.
PayPal reported a challenging Q4 with branded checkout TPV growth slowing to 1%, largely due to macro headwinds and slower merchant integrations. Management is overhauling its approach to focus on a few key areas (experience, presentment, selection) and is making investments in 2026 that will pressure near-term margins. They also withdrew long-term guidance and announced a CEO change. Online branded checkout TPV growth decelerated to 1% in Q4 from 5% in Q3, attributed to US retail weakness, issues in Germany, and deceleration in high-growth verticals.
PayPal reported a challenging Q4 with branded checkout TPV growth slowing to 1%, largely due to macro headwinds and slower merchant integrations. Management is overhauling its approach to focus on a few key areas (experience, presentment, selection) and is making investments in…
Guidance · revenue to 2%
CEO Alex Chris is being replaced by Enrique Lórez, who brings an execution-focused mindset to address the company's pace of change.
Management acknowledged execution shortfalls and reduced guidance, but expressed confidence in the turnaround plan and diversified growth drivers.
Branded checkout TPV growth slowed to 1% in Q4 from 5% in Q3. Management acknowledged execution shortfalls and reduced guidance, but expressed confidence in the turnaround plan and diversified growth drivers.
Management acknowledged execution shortfalls and reduced guidance, but expressed confidence in the turnaround plan and diversified growth drivers.
“We expect these targeted growth investments to represent approximately three points of headwind to TM dollar growth while driving durable long-term benefits in the years ahead.”
“To date, our delivery process has started with building a better product and expecting merchants to adopt at scale because of conversion benefits... merchants, especially the largest ones, have many competing priorities and require much mo…”
“Consumers with recent app use are about 40% more likely to select PayPal during checkout the following week, underscoring the value of app engagement in shaping checkout preference.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | FY2026 | $-0.05–$0.00 | $-0.03 | LOWERED |
| Revenue | FY2026 Q1 | 1%–3% | 2% | GUIDED |
| Issued | Metric | Target | Guide | Actual | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 Q1 | Gross margin | FY2026 Q2 | -2% | 44.92% | Met / beat |
ANF is an early adopter of PayPal's agentic commerce offering, suggesting it is positioning itself in new sales channels.
“Through our StoreSync offering, we are already connecting early adopters like Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, PacSun, and Wayfair with agentic chat platforms”
… and grow our share of both online and in-store volume. This is the realization of the vision we presented at Investor Day last year, and we expect to add new merchants, and expand volumes with our existing ones as a result. Let me quickly share some of our latest developments in agentic commerce. Our vision is to create a universally trusted catalog that AI agents can access, discover, and transact with safely and securely. Through our StoreSync offering, we are already connecting early adopters like Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, PacSun, and Wayfair with agentic chat platforms to allow consumers to discover, evaluate, and purchase items within the chat. We went live with agentic purchasing through perplexity ahead of Thanksgiving, and we are now also live on Microsoft Copilot. We are helping merchants connect with customers through new channels and remove friction from the checkout process. StoreSync is enabled through a partnership with Symbio, which we have agreed to acquire to bring this technology in-house. Agentech won't materially impact 2026 growth, but as AI-powered shopping scales, our aim is to become the default payment option. This is only the beginning, …
Perplexity's partnership with PayPal enables it to offer transactional capabilities, which is a new feature for the AI search platform.
“We went live with agentic purchasing through perplexity ahead of Thanksgiving, and we are now also live on Microsoft Copilot.”
… a result. Let me quickly share some of our latest developments in agentic commerce. Our vision is to create a universally trusted catalog that AI agents can access, discover, and transact with safely and securely. Through our StoreSync offering, we are already connecting early adopters like Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, PacSun, and Wayfair with agentic chat platforms to allow consumers to discover, evaluate, and purchase items within the chat. We went live with agentic purchasing through perplexity ahead of Thanksgiving, and we are now also live on Microsoft Copilot. We are helping merchants connect with customers through new channels and remove friction from the checkout process. StoreSync is enabled through a partnership with Symbio, which we have agreed to acquire to bring this technology in-house. Agentech won't materially impact 2026 growth, but as AI-powered shopping scales, our aim is to become the default payment option. This is only the beginning, and we are collaborating closely with the major AI platforms as we build Agentech commerce capabilities together. Before passing to Steve, let me address the Investor Day outlook provided a year ago. The environment has …
PayPal is integrating Visa's Verify service to help merchants reduce costs, deepening their partnership.
“Visa's pre-dispute resolution service through Verify, which will help to reduce merchant costs.”
… value-added services but didn't consistently charge for them. We exited 2025 with 16 services that merchants are happy to pay for because they're designed to improve authorization performance or reduce costs. Value-added services adoption continued to scale through the year, and in the fourth quarter, we added incremental capabilities, including flex factor and authorization enhancement delivered through our open architecture partner ecosystem, as well as Visa's pre-dispute resolution service through Verify, which will help to reduce merchant costs. We took our first omnichannel enterprise merchant live through Verifone, expanding to in-store payments where 80% of payments occur, qualifying us for RFPs requiring both online and in-store capabilities. Going forward, because of our relationship with Verifone, we can compete for those opportunities and grow our share of both online and in-store volume. This is the realization of the vision we presented at Investor Day last year, and we expect to add new merchants, and expand volumes with our existing ones as a result. Let me quickly share some of our latest developments in agentic commerce. Our vision is to create a universally …