PayPal (PYPL) Deep Dive

The beloved turnaround people have lost their patience with at the wrong time.

Let’s be honest.

You’ve probably put in the work. You’ve read the filings, followed the news, listened to the calls, and still watched your returns lag.

You don’t want more information. You want better results.

That’s what I do here at DeepValue Capital.

From the start of 2024 through January 2025, my portfolio is up 320.98%. The S&P 500 is up 45.49%.

Those results came from concentrating in overlooked corners of the market where prices are beaten down and a lot of bad news is already reflected.

I specialize in turnarounds. Companies going through temporary, solvable issues and priced unfairly because of them.

This article covers the affectionately nicknamed PainPal. It’s not hard to see how they got that name, down over 85% since mid-2021.

Many others with more knowledge than me have done great work analyzing this company but this is my attempt to break down what I believe are the key points that must go right for PayPal to make a good investment.

• Can their branded checkout avoid collapsing?

• Can other segments grow profitably?

Cheap is not good enough. The answers to these two questions must be yes for PayPal to be attractive.

Branded Checkout

When you are purchasing and item and it asks you how you would like to pay, if you see a button with the PayPal or Venmo logo. That is their branded checkout.

I am focusing on this segment for two reasons:

1. It is 30% of their total payment volume but more than 50% of their net transaction profits in 2025.

2. It has been under the most pressure.

Since 2024 growth here has decelerated down to 1% in their Q4 earnings and 4% for the year.

This deceleration was attributed to weakness in the consumer, slower rollout of new features leading to less adoption, and competition.

I believe the key attractions when customers choose their checkout method are low friction and high trust.

So let’s see how consumers are voting with their dollars by comparing against competition in 2025.

Keep in mind PayPal’s branded checkout TPV grew 4%, total TPV grew 7%, BNPL TPV 21%, and Venmo revenue around 20% in 2025.

Competition: Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Shop Pay, Klarna, Affirm

1. Apple Pay: It is very hard to find concrete data but all Apple Pay transaction volume grew 21% YoY in 2025. This includes both online and point of service payments, tap to pay. That part is growing faster than 21% so online may be growing in the teens as an estimate.

2. Google Pay: “Over 2.1B transactions were processed by Google Pay in 2025, showing a 30% increase from the previous year.”¹ Not directly comparable to TPV but signals it is meaningfully more growth than 6%.

3. Amazon Pay: “Amazon Pay processed an estimated $95B in transactions, marking an 11.8% increase compared to 2024.”​²

4. Shop Pay: In Q1-Q3 gross merchandise volume through Shop Pay has been growing above 60%. Not a market wide metric but shows that inside Shopify they are taking share.

5. Klarna: As of Q3 2025 GMV was up 23% year over year to $32.7B which was accelerating from earlier in the year.³

6. Affirm: As of Q4 2025 revenue was up 33% YoY.

This is what investors are seeing. Competition coming from everywhere and, outside of BNPL and Venmo, taking ground.

I know what you are thinking. Looking at this data, you might think PayPal is finished. But there's a critical distinction between losing share and collapsing entirely. I phrased my question intentionally.

Can PayPal’s branded checkout avoid collapsing?