Credit Card and Paypal

In this report, we focus on all aspects of the PayPal business. PayPal Basics PayPal is quickly establishing itself as a global payment processor with scale, facilitating nearly $60B in Total Payment Volume in 2008. It remains the largest player focused solely on online payments; however when compared to the total volume of large global players, such as Visa and MasterCard, PayPal’s volume remains fairly small: its $60B TPV was just over 1% of the total volume of payments processed last year by Visa and MasterCard combined. PayPal is an Established Payment Network and Brand.

A Rare Commodity

PayPal is in rare company, successfully creating itself into a formidable payment network and brand alongside dominant payment brands in Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.Payment networks sit at the top of the value chain in payments, collecting high-margin fees for facilitating payments from participants seeking access to a network of trusted merchants and consumers. PayPal overcame the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma and now has a critical mass of users in its network, differentiated as a trusted brand for facilitating online payments with the potential to extend its presence into offline opportunities longer-term.One driver of PayPal’s growth is that, unlike traditional payment methods which developed in an offline world and have been overlaid onto eCommerce, PayPal’s platform was built with eCommerce in mind. As such, PayPal has developed tools and risk management measures to address the unique complexities of handling card not present payments over the web – one of the fastest growth categories in payments. Moreover, PayPal is elegantly structured to simplify the web of connections required in a traditional payment system, making it well positioned to penetrate the small business payments market.

PayPal payment structure

Merchant Consumer Consumer Card issuer processor Card-issuing bank Merchant bank Consumer bank We think the online marketplace, and sellers in particular, benefit from this simplification in several ways:

• Ease of Use. PayPal gives virtually anyone the capacity to accept payments, enabling a merchant to operate even at an initial scale that would otherwise be uneconomical (i. e., there are no minimum requirements for payment volume in order to use PayPal.)
• Higher level of trust. The payments system is not very transparent, and not all aspects were intended for mass use. A trusted central clearinghouse like PayPal can encourage use of online payments by lowering users’ safety concerns and raising their willingness to send money online.

PayPal Is Differentiated beyond Just Online Commerce. PayPal is different from other payment brands (e. g. MasterCard, Visa) in that it is a vertically integrated payment provider. In other words, PayPal is a single source provider of payment services. By contracting directly with PayPal Merchant Services, small merchants can get all of their payment needs, and do not necessarily need a separate merchant bank account or payment gateway services provider. PayPal is gradually expanding its presence off eBay by promoting itself as an integrated payment offering along side other payment brands (e.g. MasterCard, Visa), supported by PayPal’s own merchant services offering and alliances with payment vendors like CyberSource (payment gateway) and Chase Paymentech (largest merchant acquirer in the U. S.).

PayPal’s Product Offerings for Online Sellers

PayPal offers several different products for payment acceptance, based on the size and needs of the merchant: 

Email product. This is the offering used largely by smaller eBay merchants, who receive payments entirely via e-mail, with no site of their own on which they need to integrate PayPal. Website Payments Standard. This product allows merchants to place a PayPal button on their site, and when a user is ready to check out, the user hits the button and is taken to the PayPal site where the actual checkout occurs.

The product is intended for small- to medium-size sellers, and requires the seller to be using a compatible hopping cart vendor (most are compatible). Express Checkout. Intended for larger merchants (those already accepting include Dell and Barnes & Noble). Express Checkout is incremental to the payment acceptance service used by a vendor – it gives users an additional checkout option. When a shopper uses Express Checkout, s/he logs into PayPal, and PayPal then forwards address and other info to the merchant. This allows an existing PayPal user to bypass entering personal and shipping information again, even if it is the user’s first time using the specific merchant.

Merchant acquirer functions include: Sign up merchants to enable them to accept card payments. Enable merchants to authorize card payments via the network. Pay all network and associated fees for a merchant’s transactions Facilitate clearing and settlement of card payments Provide incremental services, e. g., sending out statements, etc. Payment network (e. g.Visa, MasterCard). As the backbone to the payments industry, networks connect various banks that need to process credit card payments with merchants and provide authorization, clearing and settlement services. Networks also set rules and interchange rates (earned by the issuing bank). Payment gateway.

In the offline world, the payment gateway is the equivalent of a point-of-sale terminal that accepts the payment type (e. g. credit, debit card) and translates it into a format that can be accepted by the merchant acquirer. In the online world, the gateway generally connects an eCommerce site with the merchant acquirer.PayPal already functions as a Payment Gateway, largely as a result of its acquisition of VeriSign’s payment business, which had 144,000 customers when acquired in 4Q’05.

These include:

• Interest earned on some customer balances. PayPal earns revenue as it receives interest on the balances of some non-US account holders. Note that US customer balances are held in FDIC-insured accounts or in a money market account; PayPal does not receive interest on these accounts. BillMeLater interest and fees. Interest and fees earned on existing BML client balances are classified as Marketing Services and Other revenue.
• • Comparing PayPal Fees to Online CompetitorsPayPal’s fee structure is similar to those of its online-only competitors; both Google Checkout and Checkout by Amazon offer a similar package of fees depending on a merchant’s monthly sales volume; Amazon differs in charging a slightly different fee level for transactions under $10 as well as minimal cross-border support: both buyer and seller must have a US-based financial instrument to use the service.

Additionally, as PayPal adds new merchant sites, users of those sites begin with a heavier mix of credit card use. The mix for a merchant site begins to resemble that for PayPal overall as users’ familiarity with PayPal grows – generally, 12-18 months. Additionally, we believe BillMeLater, which is funded entirely through checks and ACH, can help improve funding mix for PayPal down the road. Other Margin Drivers PayPal margins have historically been in the 20% range, excluding corporate expenses.We believe several factors drive the variance between the 60%+ transaction margins and the high-teens overall profitability. Primary among these are:

• Customer service costs.
• Call centers as well as a variety of employees needed to manage any problems that arise in the payments process.
• We do not expect these expenses to show meaningful economies of scale as the business continues to grow.

Sales and Marketing

As PayPal has invested in growing its Merchant Services business, we believe that segment’s growth has been fueled by higher Sales spend. When the business matures, we believe there should be some scale economies in Sales. BillMeLater Basics PayPal acquired BillMeLater in 4Q’08. The service allows users to request transactional credit, rather than a revolving credit line as is the case with a credit card. BML offers consumers rapid credit decisioning on the basis of less detailed information (date of birth and last four digits of a Social Security Number) than necessary for more traditional financing.

We view this as an important indication that PayPal has potential to be a powerful brand off eBay.We believe PayPal’s recent stated focus on larger merchants suggests this is the more likely strategic direction for the company, as PayPal may not want to jeopardize its status as a partner to the large acquirers, which make it easier for enterprise-scale businesses to include PayPal as one of several payment choices.

Can PayPal Become a Scale Merchant Acquirer?

In our view, PayPal also has the potential to become a scale merchant acquirer, which could enhance its off-eBay presence, especially among smaller and mid-size merchants. As a merchant acquirer, PayPal would handle all of the card processing needs of a merchant, including directly processing other brands like Visa and MasterCard.We believe PayPal can offer very competitive rates to small merchants (who often pay heavy miscellaneous fees to acquirers), given its scale, allowing it to deepen relationships with merchants and potentially handle offline transactions as well. Smaller merchants (especially the ~87% of US merchants with annual card acceptances under $100K) tend to pay a much higher spread to their acquirer. Whereas such merchants account for ~10% of credit card volume, we believe they represent as much as $2.

As noted above, PayPal currently partners with Wells Fargo when it comes to handling non-PayPal branded transactions. One concern about a PayPal entry into the acquirer market would be whether it could successfully maintain its relationships with the other acquirers who currently offer PayPal as an option, and who would come to view PayPal as a more direct competitor. How Much is PayPal Worth? Combining the outlook outlined above, we believe PayPal TPV will reach $100. 5B in F’11; though somewhat more pessimistic or optimistic projections for the unit’s growth yield a range of $87B-$114B.At the midpoint, our estimate is for a 19% 3-year CAGR in Total Payment Volume.