PayPal Draws Takeover Interest After 46% Market Cap Slide

Hey Payments Fanatic!

PayPal is reportedly attracting takeover interest after losing roughly 46% of its market value over the past year.

According to Bloomberg, the company has held meetings with banks following unsolicited approaches. At least one large rival is said to be looking at the entire company.

Others are exploring specific assets. Discussions remain preliminary.

The stock jumped on the news👇

Let’s zoom out...

PayPal still processes close to $2 trillion in annual transaction volume. It owns Venmo. And it remains one of the few globally recognized payments brands with real infrastructure at scale.

Market share has slipped to Apple Pay and Google Pay. Q4 results disappointed. The CEO was replaced. A turnaround officially begins March 1. This is what an inflection point looks like.

When a category pioneer loses momentum but still controls scarce payment rails, value can either be unlocked internally… or externally. Turnaround story. Strategic acquisition. Or both.

Scroll down for what’s at stake and your daily dose of the latest Payments updates. 👇Tomorrow, more news highlights will be coming your way!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

➡️ 15M-User Neobank Authenticates 92% of Instant Payments Frictionlessly using Incognia’s Device & Location Intelligence. Incognia adds a crucial layer beyond device validation by recognising users in the physical world. This real-world context helps combat social engineering in real-time payments like Pix, while preserving a seamless customer experience.

NEWS

📰 Social Engineering: Solving the Most Difficult Fraud Challenge with André Ferraz, CEO and Co-Founder of Incognia. This webinar explores how social engineering fuels financial fraud, enabling scams such as authorised push payment (APP) fraud, RAT-enabled attacks, account takeover (ATO), and mule activity.

🇬🇭 Prudential Bank and Mastercard deepen ties to drive Ghana’s digital payment growth. Prudential Bank Limited and Mastercard have renewed their partnership to expand corporate, SME, and digital payment solutions in Ghana through 2026, building on existing Mastercard-branded card and payment integrations.

🇺🇸 PayPal attracts takeover interest after stock slump. The company has fielded meetings with banks amid unsolicited interest from suitors, with at least one large rival looking at the whole company and others interested in certain PayPal assets.

🇺🇸 PayPal Holdings, Inc. sued for securities law violations. The complaint alleges PayPal made misleading statements about the growth potential of its Branded Checkout segment despite internal sales organisation issues. Investors who suffered losses during the class period are encouraged to contact the firm regarding participation.

🇺🇸 PayPal data breach confirmed, money was stolen, and passwords have been reset. Some PayPal users have started to receive emails from the company confirming a data breach that exposed personal information to a threat actor who gained access to PayPal’s systems, leading to some seeing unauthorised transactions on their accounts and having their passwords reset.

🇮🇳 Razorpay and superU target frictionless commerce through agentic payments. The collaboration links superU AI’s conversational layer with Razorpay’s payments stack to enable transactions that are initiated and completed by an AI agent, without human intervention.

🇵🇭 Philippine FinTech BCRemit expands remittance services to 23 countries, boosting global cross-border payments. BCRemit now caters to small and medium-sized enterprises, business process outsourcers, and freelancers with tailored cross-border payment options.

🇮🇳 Pine Labs awarded multi-year contracts by the top 3 Indian OMCs for nationwide digital payments platform modernisation. Under the contracts executed with respective OMCs, Pine Labs will be entrusted with deploying, managing, and maintaining the digital payments infrastructure at petrol pumps and merchant outlets across India.

🇮🇳 Pine Labs appoints Shalini Pillai as CMO to spearhead global brand transformation. In this role, Shalini will lead global marketing strategy, product marketing, marcom, and brand positioning for Pine Labs. Before joining Pine Labs, Shalini was the Marketing Director, India and South Asia at Microsoft.

🌍 OPP and SUNMI partner to democratise payment monetisation for SaaS platforms across Europe. The partnership delivers a complete, in-store and omnichannel embedded payment proposition designed for software providers and resellers.

🇬🇧 Kindo partners with Tillo to bring rewards to childcare payments. The partnership helps families turn verified nursery spend into meaningful rewards, with points that can be redeemed for digital vouchers with everyday brands. Tillo powers the gift card redemption experience within Kindo, providing users with access to a wide selection of digital gift cards from leading and beloved brands.

🇩🇪 Green Banana and VR Payment partner for BNPL orchestration. The collaboration aimed to enable merchants to manage multiple BNPL solutions alongside other payment methods through a unified dashboard. Read more

🇲🇽 Visa’s proposed deal rejected by Mexico’s antitrust watchdog. Visa said it was disappointed by the commission’s decision and is carefully reviewing the ruling and will evaluate all of its options, believing that the combination of Visa and Prosa would significantly accelerate competition in the market and modernise payments in Mexico.

🌏 Zen.com grows globally without chasing super-app status. Its goal is a tenfold increase in its customer base within five years and to equalise the contribution of Europe and Asia to revenues over the next three years, all while keeping costs under control and avoiding risky financing.

🇲🇦 WafR raises USD 4m seed to scale embedded retail finance in Morocco. The latest funding will support network expansion toward 100,000 retailers and product diversification into micro-insurance and credit scoring, positioning WafR as a key player in Morocco’s shift from cash to mobile-first finance.

🇮🇩 DANA eyes IPO on Indonesia Stock Exchange, awaits the right market timing. The company is studying past tech listings and says it will move forward once its product ecosystem is fully optimised, while continuing to focus on user experience and security.

🇸🇽 Revolut and PayPal are not interested in the St. Maarten market due to its size. According to the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten, Revolut said the market is too small relative to compliance costs and that its focus remains on larger markets, while PayPal also considers the market economically unattractive.

🇺🇸 Hyperliquid web3 'SuperApp' based raises $11.5 million Series A led by Pantera. The platform plans to build AI-based personal financial agents capable of identifying opportunities across prediction markets and perpetuals, executing trades, and facilitating spending through its payments infrastructure.

🇺🇸 RevSpring acquires TrustCommerce®. RevSpring plans to integrate TrustCommerce's enterprise gateway connectivity and extensive integrated payments footprint with RevSpring's payments and financial engagement platform to help organisations unify payment operations and improve results across the revenue cycle.

🇬🇧 New contactless card payment rule coming to the UK from March 19. UK banks will be allowed to raise the current £100 contactless payment limit per transaction. However, research shows fewer than half of banks and building societies currently let customers set their own contactless limits, raising concerns that many may be unprepared for the change.

GOLDEN NUGGET

What is "𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬"? by Checkout.com👇 Created by Arthur Bedel 💳 ♻️

► 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 is the process of replacing sensitive card data (like PANs) with a non-sensitive equivalent known as a 𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧. This ensures that actual card details are never exposed or stored during or after a transaction.

► The Goal → reduce fraud, simplify PCI compliance, and power secure, scalable commerce.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 — Step by Step

1️⃣ Merchant (GoDaddy, Nike, Sony)

► Captures the customer’s Primary Account Number (PAN) through their website or app.

2️⃣ Vault / PSP (VGS, Checkout.com, Braintree)

► The PAN is sent to a token vault (merchant, third-party, or PSP-owned), where it’s replaced with a network token or PCI token.

3️⃣ Acquirer (Checkout.com, Adyen, Stripe, Nuvei, Getnet)

► Receives the tokenized transaction, which now contains a network-issued token rather than the actual PAN.

4️⃣ Card Network (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, GIE Cartes Bancaires, UATP)

► The token is translated back into the actual PAN so the transaction can be routed to the cardholder’s issuer.

5️⃣ Issuer Bank (Citi, Chase, Capital One)

► Validates the original card, checks for fraud, and approves or declines the transaction.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

🔹 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬

→ Issued by card networks (Visa, Mastercard)

→ Enhances approval rates by keeping credentials fresh (via account updater)

→ Replaces PANs at the scheme level

→ Example: Visa Token Service, Mastercard MDES

→ Provided by Network directly or 3rd Parties (Vault, PSPs etc…) - Checkout.com, VGS

🔹 𝐏𝐂𝐈 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬 (Merchant Tokens)

→ Issued by a token vault provider (VGS, Checkout.com)

→ Designed to remove PCI scope from merchants

→ PAN is encrypted & stored in a secure vault; merchants only handle tokens

🔹 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬

→ Managed by wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay

→ Device-specific tokens issued for in-app or contactless payments

→ Never exposes the actual card number to the merchant

𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 — Real-World Applications

✅ 𝐎𝐧𝐞-𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐨𝐮𝐭 — Amazon & Shopify store network tokens to enable fast, secure repeat purchases

✅ 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 — Netflix and Spotify use PCI tokens to safely charge recurring payments

✅ 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐬 — ApplePay leverage device-based tokenization for in-store tap payments

✅ 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬-𝐏𝐒𝐏 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 — VGS and 3rd party vaults, create merchant token vaults transmit the token to route transactions across multiple acquirers

Source: Checkout.com

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