When PayPal launched almost three decades ago, the company made its name as one of the world’s first fintechs. Now, PayPal faces a slew of competitors, from the payments colossus Stripe to Big Tech giants like Apple. “One of the challenges when you are at a certain scale and you’ve been around for a while is the very classic innovator’s dilemma,” Alex Chriss, the president and CEO of PayPal, told Fortune. “What you’ve done has worked, and are you constantly thinking about how to disrupt yourself?”
Investors are likely wondering the same thing. Since January, PayPal’s stock price has dropped more than 30% as it tries to halt competitors from encroaching on its core products of online checkout and peer-to-peer payments. In response, the fintech is looking to get a lift from next-generation payment products like stablecoins, and working to incorporate them across its operations and products.
