PayPal This week laid out his vision for the future of his digital wallet platform and his PayPal and Venmo Apps. During the third quarter earnings on Monday, the company announced that it plans to make significant changes to its mobile apps over the next year to incorporate a range of new features including improved direct deposit, check cashing, budgeting tools, bill payment and crypto support, Subscription management, “buy now / pay later” functions and all of Honey’s shopping tools.
While PayPal had talked about bringing in the past honey The features of PayPal, CEO Dan Schulman, explained the integrations PayPal has in store for the deal-finding platform, which was purchased for $ 4 billion last year, as well as a schedule for this and the other app updates.
The Honey acquisition had brought 17 million monthly active users to PayPal. These users turned to Honey’s browser extension and mobile app for the best savings on items they wanted to buy, track prices, and more.
But even today, the Honey experience remains separate from PayPal itself. The company wants to change that next year.
According to Schulman, the company’s apps will be updated to include Honey’s shopping tools like the wishlist that lets you buy items you want to buy, price monitoring tools to alert you to savings and price reductions, and offers, coupons and rewards. These tools become part of the PayPal checkout solution.
This means that the company is able to track the customer from the very first phase of the deal hunt, where they show their interest in a particular product, approach them with savings and offers, and then guide them in one place through the Checkout leads.
PayPal will also provide merchants with “anonymous demand data” based on consumer engagement with Honey’s tools to drive sales.
In addition, PayPal has timed the Honey integrations and the other updates that will roll out over the next year.
According to PayPal, the rollout of Bill Pay will begin this month with a major redesign of the digital wallet experience expected in the first half of 2021. Most of the new functions will be available in the second quarter and the second half of the year. with the aim of having most of the changes in place by the end of next year.
This also includes PayPal’s plans for cryptocurrencies announced in late October. The company intends to support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin initially in the US
Schulman spoke to investors during the profit call, and also noted when PayPal plans to bring crypto to more users and regions. He said the ability to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies will arrive first in the US and then roll out in international markets and the Venmo app in the first half of next year. (PayPal is currently offering US users the option of joining a waiting list for the new crypto functions in the app.)
Credit: PayPal
This change allows PayPal users to shop in cryptocurrencies from the company’s 28 million merchants without the need for additional integrations on the part of the merchants. The company said this is due to the way it handles the settlement process, which allows users to instantly transfer crypto to fiat currency at a set rate when checking out at PayPal merchants.
PayPal recently joined the “buy now, pay later” race with its new “Pay in 4” installment program, which allows consumers to split purchases into 4 payments. This debuted in France before launching in the US in late August and has since been rolled out in the UK (as Pay in 3). This, too, will be more closely integrated into the company’s apps in the coming months.
Venmo – which the company expects to see $ 900 million in revenue next year – will expand its business profile and experience crypto features, more basic finance and shopping tools, and a pay with Venmo checkout update.
Schulman described the company’s plans to revamp its Venmo and PayPal apps as a “major change,” as the changes over the next year will bring new features and experience – essentially a redesign – to users Easily switch from one experience to the next instead of having to change apps or use a desktop browser, for example.
PayPal’s earnings didn’t wow Wall Street investors this week, sending the stock down due to the lack of a forecast for 2021. However, the coming year for PayPal’s digital wallet apps seems interesting.