PayPal's Venmo: Can Monetization Sustain Its Mid-Teens Growth?

PayPal Holdings, Inc.’s PYPL Venmo is becoming a bigger part of the company’s growth story as it pushes beyond peer-to-peer payments. In the second quarter of 2026, Venmo's total payment volume (TPV) rose 14% year over year, marking a seventh straight quarter of double-digit growth. Management said Venmo and Braintree were growing TPV in the mid-teens, as PayPal seeks to diversify growth beyond branded checkout.

Venmo Debit Card monthly active accounts (MAA) grew more than 50% year over year, while Pay with Venmo MAA rose about 30%. Pay with Venmo grew 44%, well above PayPal’s 2% currency-neutral growth in online branded checkout, showing stronger use of the app beyond money transfers.

Monetization improves when customers adopt more Venmo products. Customers using both Venmo Debit and Pay with Venmo generated more than nine times the average revenue per account of peer-to-peer-only users. This customer group has roughly doubled in size over the past year, giving management a path to lift revenues without depending on account growth.

PayPal is rebuilding the Venmo app to improve product discovery and engagement. Venmo feature development accelerated fourfold in the first half of 2026. Management plans to bring more PayPal financial-services capabilities into Venmo, using shared technology, identity and risk systems.

Venmo’s progress matters because PayPal is looking for faster growth outside branded checkout. In the second quarter of 2026, the company reported TPV of $486.4 billion, up 10%, while transaction margin dollars excluding interest on customer balances grew 3%. Management said Venmo monetization was one of the drivers of transaction-margin growth.

How Are Block & Apple Doing in the Payments Space?

Block, Inc.’s XYZ Cash App supports peer-to-peer transfers, spending and merchant payments. In June 2026, Block introduced Cash App Tags, NFC-enabled accessories linked to Cash App Card, expanding contactless payments beyond phones and cards. Cash App serves roughly 59 million monthly transacting active users. In second-quarter 2026, Cash App gross profit grew 31% year over year to $1.97 billion.

Apple AAPL continues to broaden the utility of its payments ecosystem through Apple Pay, Apple Wallet and Tap to Pay, making the iPhone an increasingly important platform for both consumers and merchants. In June 2026, Apple announced Visual Intelligence for splitting bills with Apple Cash and a redesigned Apple Pay checkout.

PYPL’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of PayPal have gained 29.1% in the past three months, underperforming both the broader industry and the S&P 500 Index.

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 10.47X, which is at a significant discount to the Zacks Financial Transaction Services industry’s 18.66X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

PayPal’s estimate revisions reflect a positive trend. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year 2026 EPS has been revised upward to $5.37 over the past week. The consensus estimate for the metric indicates a year-over-year increase.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

PayPal currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Beyond Nvidia: AI's Second Wave Is Here

The AI revolution has already minted millionaires. But the stocks everyone knows about aren't likely to keep delivering the biggest profits. AI’s second wave is moving from infrastructure to implementation and these companies are at the forefront of this transition, positioned to become what Amazon and Google were to the internet era.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

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

Zacks Investment Research