PayPal to spend $3 billion annually on M&A

PayPal (PYPL), a pioneer in the digital payments space, is serious about expanding its payments empire. Ever since PayPal parted ways from eBay (EBAY) in 2015, it has been working on offering a wide range of digital financial services which is clearly evident from the company’s recent moves. Over the past few months, the payments company has been aggressively investing in various companies and has no plans of putting an end to it. PayPal has rather increased its annual acquisition budget.

During an interview with a German business newspaper, Handelsblatt, PayPal’s CEO Dan Schulman stated about the company’s plans on allotting $3 billion a year for acquisitions.  The company’s largest acquisition till date is the startup iZettle. The Swedish fintech firm was snapped for a whopping $2.2 billion two months back. Schulman also reiterated that PayPal wouldn’t hesitate to indulge in a bigger deal if it’s a right match for the company.

PayPal faces strong competition from rivals in the fintech space like Square (SQ) and Apple (APPL). Also, PayPal lost a huge chunk of business from its biggest customer eBay. All of this is a threat to the company’s growing business. In order to ensure its investors get a strong return, the company has been investing in several companies. In the last two months alone, PayPal has acquired four companies, namely iZettle, Jetlore, Hyperwallet and Simility.

Related: PayPal agrees to buy iZettle

Each company that PayPal acquired has strengthened its product portfolio. iZettle has helped in expanding the company’s presence internationally as well as in thousands of brick-and-mortar retailers. The company will work with the artificial intelligence startup Jetlore, which it acquired in May, towards offering more personalized customer experiences.

Such deals are expected to boost the company’s performance in the future. In the quarter ended March 31, 2018, the company’s revenue jumped 24% from a year ago and profit surged 33%. In 2018, the San Jose, California-based company expects revenue to increase 16 – 18% to a range of $15.20 – $15.40 billion.

Related: PayPal to acquire Hyperwallet