PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Sanjay Sakhrani: Alex, one more on the initiatives. I’m just trying to think through the prioritization of these additional investments you’ll be making. Of those 6 initiatives, which do you think will sort of yield the returns quickest? And maybe a little bit more on timing of them, maybe not 2024, but how early? And then, Jamie, just a quick question on the interest rates. I think you mentioned, you don’t expect it to have a big impact or as big an impact in 2024, but is there an explicit rate forecast you have? Like do you have lower rates in 2024?

James Chriss: So all of the innovations are incredibly exciting for us, but let me be specific on your question. The two that I am closely watching and our teams are executing on immediately is really a focus on the branded experience. This is both for the combination of merchants and consumers, easing that experience for a customer to choose PayPal, have a reward that comes back to them, ensure that they’re able to get through the experience with velocity and check out every time with PayPal, is a huge focus for us, and that’s where we are driving a new app experience. And again, all of these innovations will be coming out over the next couple of weeks to months. Then we have to drive adoption. So that is having conversations with merchants, ensuring that they’re upgrading to our latest innovations, that’s ensuring that we make it easy for them as well.

So that’s why you’ve seen us launch a new developer portal. We’re creating no-code, low-code experiences so developers can take the demand that they’ve shown because they have a best-in-class experience now and get it into market. So step one is I’m very focused on that branded experience. The second one is on the unbranded side, which is ensuring that Fastlane gets rolled out. That, to me, starts to create an interesting network effect of us being able to have not only a branded experience, but for them, those consumers that pass a branded experience, whether it’s ours or anyone else’s and want to just go through a guest checkout flow, we’re able to identify them, we’re able to help them and our merchants complete the transaction. And then we’re able to have a follow-up conversation with that customer as well because they’ve gone through our Fastlane experience.

So those 2 to me, we need to get rolled out, we need to get points on the board and show that it’s driving, but driving outcomes, but that is where I’m most focused on right now.

Jamie Miller: Yes. And Sanjay, on the interest rate question, we do expect that the interest income on customer balances will have a strong growth this year, but really it will be more first half-focused. The second half, we do expect a series of rate cuts that is assumed in our macroeconomic scenario that underpins our guide, and that’s why the second half should be much lighter on that front.

Operator: That is all the time we have for questions. I will turn it to Alex Chriss for closing remarks.

James Chriss: Fantastic. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you all for joining us today. I want to reemphasize that 2024 is going to be a transition year focused on execution to position our business for long-term success. I’m excited with where we’re positioned in the market, and I know that there is a real opportunity to grow our role in commerce. We’re driving the foundational and transformative changes that will set the company up for the future. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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