President and CEO Dan Schulman’s comments on PayPal’s April month and May 1 transactions were a revelation.

On Wednesday, Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL) declared its first-quarter numbers. President and CEO Dan Schuman’s remarks on the earnings call regarding PayPal’s post-quarter performance gave an insight into how the fintech’s fortunes are changing due to the COVID-19 crisis and shelter-in-place rules. His comments propelled the stock to a 14% gain for the day and an all-time high. (Seeking Alpha)

Fintechs in clover? Key takeaways from Schuman’s remarks

• COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the way we think about the future
• Dramatic acceleration from physical to digital
• Digital payments have evolved from a “nice to have” capability to an essential service.
• “We began to see a very noticeable shift in our results toward the end of March and throughout April.”
• “We saw dramatic increases in our daily net new actives and overall engagement levels.”
• Unprecedented demand for PayPal’s products and services unfolded in the past month
• Transactions are up 20% year-over-year, with branded transactions up over 43% more than double pre-COVID levels in January and February
• On May 1st, PayPal reported its largest single day of transactions in its history, larger than last year’s transactions on Black Friday or Cyber Monday
• April revenues +20%, and record revenue growth of +35% in checkout experiences
• Net new active accounts hit record highs in April, surging over 140% from January and February levels
• In April, Paypal added on average about 250,000 net new active accounts a day
• The all-time record of 7.4 million net new customers set in April, and a record 10 million for Q1
• “I would characterize April is perhaps our strongest month since our IPO”
• Paypal anticipates that it will add 15 million to 20 million new accounts in Q2
• “We would expect strong EPS and free cash flow growth in Q2”

“I believe we will look back at this time as a tipping point, where digital payments both offline and online became an essential element of our lives, hastening the demise of cash, enforcing a reimagination of commerce, retailing and the payment system.”

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