With Hyperwallet acquisition, Paypal gets more payment options

The news has just come that Paypal has acquired Hyperwallet for US$ 400 million (EUR 343 million) in cash. Hyperwallet, headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada, positions itself as a payout platform, in other words, a means for organizations to distribute funds to their global contractors, suppliers, and resellers. Over the last few months, Hyperwallet has announced agreements with tilr, which pays unbanked workers, Lyric, which pays artists, and many other niche markets.

Paypal may appear as being on a buying spree after having acquired iZettle last month for US$ 2.2 billion (EUR 1.87 billion - cf. our post on May 22, 2018) and Jetlore, an artificial intelligence startup. Jetlore is a prediction platform that helps retailers to learn consumer preferences and leverage this knowledge to provide a more tailored consumer experience.

Other Paypal significant acquisitions over the last couple of year include Braintree (a mobile and web eCommerce platform for SMEs, acquired in 2013 for US$ 800 million, EUR 686 million), Venmo (a peer to peer payment app, acquired in 2013 for US$ 800 million – EUR 686 million), Paydiant (a white label mobile wallet developer, acquired in 2015 for US$ 280 million – EUR 240 million), Xoom (a digital money transfer or remittance provider, acquired in 2015 for US$ 890 million – EUR 763 million), and Simility (a fraud detection and prevention platform, acquired last Friday for US$ 120 million – EUR 103 million in cash).

Hyperwallet acquisition will bring to Paypal an integrated suite of payment solutions for ecommerce platforms and marketplaces. Paypal will combine Hyperwallet offer with Braintree’s in order to provide merchants with the support of numerous payment options, including prepaid card, bank account, debit card, cash pickup, check and PayPal, in more than 200 markets worldwide.

While Paypal is turning 20 this year (the company had been established in 1998 as Confinity, and was acquired by eBay in 2002), its positioning is in constant evolution. Now that Paypal is totally separated from eBay (the split happened in July 2015), its strategy to become a universal payment solution for everyone is becoming more legible. Paypal is extremely present in the online world and still struggles to find its place in the brick and mortar environment. The acquisition of iZettle reinforced the company presence in physical commerce while the acquisition of Hyperwallet aims at strengthening the company position in online business. In addition, Paypal, through these acquisitions demonstrates its will to become a global player in commerce, not only on payment: with Jetlore, the company is able to provide support for retailers to anticipate consumers preferences. Next months will certainly bring us news of more Paypal acquisitions….