PayPal Stories Archive

 

In 2013, it was clear that Braintree’s early bet on mobile was paying off. Most of the best next-gen mobile commerce companies were using Braintree for payments. We launched industry-first products like Venmo Touch to make buying on mobile seamless, and we had $12B in Authorized Payment Volume across 40 markets.

 

At Braintree, we had a vision for what commerce could be -- a world where consumers and merchants could seamlessly connect anywhere -- and we wanted to build the platform that could transform commerce around the world. So we got to work building the platform and products that could enable this future. In doing so, we also saw an amazing opportunity to accelerate our efforts by joining forces with PayPal and their shared vision for the future of payments and commerce.  

 

On September 26, 2013, we announced plans to join the PayPal family, and together we’ve been able to build, grow, and scale faster than ever to help rewire commerce and improve the way merchants and consumers connect. With Braintree’s mobile first platform and the power and reach of PayPal’s two-sided network with millions of merchants and 100M+ active consumer accounts, we were even better positioned to deliver on our commitments to our customers. 

 

One way to measure how we are living up to our commitments and the progress we’ve made towards our vision to build the platform that will transform commerce is by being transparent about our numbers. It’s one thing to say we’re transforming commerce, but it’s another thing to be able to back that up with numbers that show whether we’re having the impact we aspire to.  

 

Just two years after the acquisition, Braintree expects to cross $50B in Authorized Payment Volume* in 2015 -- more than quadrupling our payment volume in two years. In Q1 2014, just a few months after the acquisition closed, Braintree had 56.5M cards on file. In Q2 2015, Braintree has nearly tripled the number of cards on file to 154M. The increase in payment volume and customer growth is a direct result of things like our international expansion – today Braintree is in 46 markets across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Our growth is also in part due to our collaboration with ecommerce platforms like Bigcommerce and enabling payments for many of Bigcommerce’s 90,000 merchants. It also comes from our expanded merchant base, which includes new companies like FanDuel,Jet.com,One Kings Lane and hungryhouse as well as industry leaders like Uber and Airbnb. 

 

This tremendous growth is reflective of the products that, as one company, we are able to build and deliver at scale. When we decided to join PayPal, we did so knowing that together we could bring out the best in each other and better serve our customers. 

 

Today, that’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve integrated our platforms and products to put out industry-firsts like PayPal One Touch™. More than 50% of the Internet Retailer 500 and hundreds of thousands of merchants within the Braintree and PayPal network now have One Touch enabled with no action required on their part. Millions of consumers have opted in to use One Touch. We also worked together to launch Braintree’s v.zero SDK, which enables merchants to accept all relevant forms of payment including PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay®, Android Pay and bitcoin with a single integration. As we move toward a world in which consumers demand the ability to buy across contexts, Braintree and PayPal are working together to help enable new forms of commerce. One example of this is our work with social platforms like Pinterest, where we help enable Buyable Pins for merchants like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. 

 

In addition to building and developing internally, being part of PayPal lets us use the company’s balance sheet to bring in talent and technology from outside. Our acquisition of Modest, for example, came from our long-term vision that commerce should be enabled anywhere and everywhere consumers want. With Modest, we will enable merchants to offer an end-to-end experience that makes selling on any platform easier. For consumers, this means more seamless, simple, and secure ways to buy the things they want, anywhere they discover them.

 

We believe the Modest acquisition will be as transformative as Braintree’s first acquisition, Venmo. In Q2 of 2015, Venmo processed $1.6B of social commerce, growing 247% YoY, making it one of the fastest growing mobile apps in the world by dollar volume. Not only was it named by Time magazine as one of the Top 10 Apps, but “Venmo Me” has turned into a common verb. Importantly, it was Venmo Touch that was the foundation for PayPal One Touch, which has led to as much as 50% or greater increases in conversion of PayPal.

 

While we do power beautiful buying experiences like One Touch and buy buttons, we’re also focused on powering things behind the scenes to help keep our merchants secure. We rolled out our unique Hosted Fields product, for example, to address complex PCI compliance changes so our merchants don’t have to.

 

Braintree has come a long way since it joined the PayPal family, but together with PayPal, we’re just getting started. We realize that we wouldn’t be here today without the support of our customers -- our customers are the reason we exist. Thank you for your continued trust, support and feedback.