Global payments giant PayPal is planning a massive play into the crypto sector next year according to its top brass. At the firm’s quarter 3 earnings meeting for 2020, senior executives discussed at length, plans to push into crypto while also mentioning their planned support for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCS).
PayPal CEO Dan Shuman was vocal about the changing outlook of the payments sector.
“Clearly the world is rapidly moving from physical to digital,” he said as he cited discussions had with regulators, central banks and those in crypto. He added that the digital space was becoming even more prominent and that CBDCs were coming soon in his opinion.
“There is no question that digital currencies are going to be rising in importance, having increasing functionality, and increasing prominence. CBDCs are a matter of when and how they’re done, and not if.”
PayPal’s CEO mentioned his firm’s scale and brand prominence and how that could help CBDCs. According to Shuman, PayPal can help facilitate interoperability with existing systems, foster merchant acceptance and generally “help shape the utility of CBDCs”.
Legacy financial systems “not working”
Though PayPal as an organization comes off to many in this era as part of the traditional financial setup, Shuman clearly doesn’t because he trashed legacy financial systems and termed them as “not working” for ordinary people.
“I do think that our platform and all the new digital infrastructure that we’re putting in place right now can help make that management and movement of money more efficient, less expensive, and faster.”
PayPal Crypto services already in demand
Shuman’s comments are a follow up to the firm’s announcement last month that it would roll out services to help customers buy, sell and hold crypto assets. In the Q3 earnings meeting, executives mentioned that demand was already building in anticipation for their services.
Currently, only 10 per cent of its user-base have access to its crypto services in the U.S. Shulman stated that the rest of the country would be connected by December time.
He also revealed that the firm would be increasing its crypto purchase limit from $10,000 to $15,000 weekly. According to him, customers are already buzzing about the new services.
“Our waiting list was two to three times what our expectations were. We’re seeing people who have already bought crypto open their wallet several times a day to check out what’s happening with their crypto investments.”
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