PayPal continues to expand beyond online payments. After entering the world of cryptocurrencies earlier this year, the American company is now exploring the possibility of becoming a broker in which to buy shares. It is a proposal that could compete directly with financial services giants such as Robinhood or Square.
According to the sources consulted by CNBC, the San Jose, California company recently hired a brokerage industry veteran. This is Richard Hagen, who co-founded the broker Online TradeKing which was later sold to Ally Invest. The expert is the new CEO of a division called “Invest at PayPal”, according to his profile on the professional social network LinkedIn.
Hagen’s task within PayPal, according to his bio, is “to lead the company’s efforts to explore new opportunities in the investment and consumer business.” Precisely, this movement of the electronic payments giant comes in the middle of the online investment boom. According to estimates by JMP Securities, the stock market has received more than 10 million investors in the first half of this year.
PayPal faces other giants
Few details are currently known about this new PayPal foray. In order to offer the possibility of offering clients the possibility to buy shares, the company could partner with or purchase an existing stockbroker. In this sense, it would have already held conversations with other industry players to advance its plans that, in this first stage, would be available only in the United States.
In case of launching into the market fintech individually, PayPal should process an approval from scratch. This would be with US regulators and in the countries where you want to operate in the future. Consequently, it would translate into a management that could take several months and that would only end next year.
The new PayPal platform, as mentioned CNBC, would come to compete directly with Square and Robinhood, two well-known platforms that offer cryptocurrency trading and purchase and sale operations of financial securities and shares that are traded on the stock market.