Name: How PayPal is responding to the coronavirus crisis
Uploaded: 2020-04-17
Duration: 13 min 22 s
Description: CEO Dan Schulman spoke with Fortune's Jen Wieczner.

I was hoping you could kind of set the scene a little bit in terms of we have this unprecedented situation. The economy or much of the economy at least has kind of ground to a standstill. And there are a lot of Americans who are out work. Obviously our lives have changed so much. And one thing that we've been really intrigued by is how that's affecting the financial system. How Americans are interacting with their finances .>> The impacts of the virus are profound. People are sheltering at home. They're not going out. And that's changing the way that all of us work and the way all of us live, and so you're seeing that with a increased use Of all things digital, I'm on the board of Verizon. We're seeing a tremendous increase in the use of wireless services and the use of the Internet in general. And along with that, people are using digital payments in ways that we really never imagined before. Not only is there a tremendous increase The use of digital payments, but the way people are using them are also changing. Yeah. You mentioned some of the increases you're seeing and ways that people are using your services that you haven't seen before. Can you give some examples of that what you're seeing? I mean over the last couple of weeks, the number of new customers that have signed on to PayPal or Venmo. Has increased dramatically. I mean, in some cases doubling. And, you know, in general we're seeing different usage patterns emerge. People are spending a lot more online in the weekend because they are So busy during the week either doing home schooling, on conference calls on video calls, that the weekend allows them to sort of restock from home and so we're seeing a tremendous increase In shopping in verticals like groceries, electronics, home, and gardening. Gaming is exploding. What really intrigues me, and what we're seeing, in ways that we've never have seen before, is this increase of spontaneous giving To- who need the money. Sometimes from friends and sometimes from strangers. Over these peer- to- peer networks like VIMEO or PayPal to help people in need. And these are all kinds of things that just people paying it forward. And we're now doing a hashtag called Then move it forward where, if we see somebody doing a kind of random active kindness, we're giving them $ 20 into their Venmo account and say, and we're saying to them, do even more. Yeah, is it things like people supporting healthcare workers and in funding the equipment or what are some of the examples that you've seen that have moved you the most? Yeah, well, I think it's a range that moves from charities that really need help and these are charities that are doing either community based, food programs for those who need food delivered. You have a lot of charities looking at the distribution of health equipment. Whether it be mask, gloves, sanitizers, that kinda thing. You have funding for vaccines and preventative types of things for the for the virus, but what I'm seeing are people really stepping up to the everyday heroes that are out there right now. Honestly, those are cashiers at grocery stores or pharmacies, first responders, nurses, doctors. Many nurses and doctors can't go back to their homes, or are reluctant to go to their homes, because they're fearful that they might spread the virus to family members. And so they need incremental money to stay at places, whether they be hotels that are opening up, Airbnb that are opening up to them, so that they have actually extra expenses, and cash to be able to do the things that they do day in and day out. That are so important to our society moving forward as it is and this time of need for everybody. When you think back to where things stood in terms of the technology and FinTech, even from the last crisis, so say the last 10 years Are these Technologies in a different place that are set up to help people in a different way than we even was available the last down cycle we had the last financial crisis. Well, I think you've seen an explosion in Mobile over those past 10 years, certainly in The penetration of smart phones. When you have a smart phone, you have all the power of a bank branch in the palm of your hands. And at the same time, you've had an explosion in the capabilities of digital payments. And I think as you think about it as we're sheltering at home and you have people who are unbanked, almost 25 %, As Americans are underserved right now. They may not have a bank account traditionally would have had to have gone to a cash checking location, and now they're sheltering at home. But they can do that right from their mobile phone, they can take a picture of a check deposited onto a platform. Like a PayPal, or a Venmo, or deposit it into a bank account. And so the use of technology now is enabling I think these previously underserved populations to become part of this digital economy. It sounds like you and many other companies right now are talking to the government about ways that you might be able to help in distributing this stimulus, whether it's. In the stimulus checks as well as the small business loans and the paycheck Protection Program. Are you set up to help it and what can you do there? Making sure that those checks get those populations that most need them. Is something that we are working with the government on. We have a lot of information, We have a lot of customers who don't necessarily have bank accounts, but do have accounts with PayPal or Venmo. We need to be sure that there's strong authentication. Which we pride ourselves on to make sure that those checks are going to the right people. Just in terms of the you know, your conversations and thinking about what's possible and how you could help kind of speed access to this the stimulus for people. How new would that be for you in terms of working in that capacity with the government or how unprecedented Would it be to use new technology or the technology that's available to make these electronic payments and get this money out there? We work with different parts of government, whether they be state governments, municipalities, governments around the world to. Do the everyday civic things that people do, whether it be pay taxes, get tax refunds, pay parking tickets, utilities, that kind of thing. So that that has been happening, but doing something at this scale with the federal government. Would be something unprecedented. It's not easy to go do for the government. How we do it and the best way to get that done as rapidly as possible Is still evolving towards what I would consider to be a long term solution. This is clearly not a money making effort on the behalf paper. This is a civic and the right thing to do civic effort and the right thing to do. For all digital platforms, we do have a portion of our customer base who has gotten their tax refunds directly onto our platform and those that have done that. Would be able to also receive those disbursement checks directly as well. Most of these things are not brand new, they're just not at the scale that is being contemplated right now. We're hearing a lot of bad news and a lot of negative trends over the past few weeks, but could, somehow, those trends that you're seeing in this Maybe have a positive effect of potentially decreasing the amount of the underbanked or increasing the amount of access to financial services for different populations. I mean, is there any positive effect that you see coming out of this? I do think as we're seeing a new era of digital payments, that we're not going to go backwards to that, to what was we're not going to be using cash nearly as much. I think we're all gonna be aware of hygiene, going forward. I think the use of QR codes in store is going to continue to increase as we're seeing it increase right now. And I think the more we can move into a digital economy The more inclusive that can be. And we need to be sure that happens because I do think digital forms of payments can be much more time efficient. You don't have to wait in line at a cash checking location. You don't have to wait in line to pay your bills and number two is it can be done. Much less expensively. But sometimes it can cost 2 % to 5 % to cash a check. And all that is, is changing a form of currency from one form to another. And then you've got to pay another fee to pay a bill. If you can do it electronically, I think we can save a tremendous amount of money. For those populations that most need that savings. So, I'm hopeful that this is a tipping point in the way people think about managing and moving money from. Physical into digital because they think that can really drive a tremendous number of benefits to those who most needed and to our economy and society .>> I know you've talked a lot about that. What you're trying to do is not, your priority is not benefiting your PayPal bottom line, right now you're thinking beyond that and how you can help people. But it also sounds like you're seeing a lot of positive business trends for PayPal. And meanwhile, you're hearing a lot of bad stories about business and a lot of negative and stories about declines. Is it possible? Do you think that PayPal will buck that trend and potentially. You know, have a very positive, whether it's you know, the first quarter of this year or just that these months while we're still dealing with these restrictions in this pandemic. I think PayPal has the opportunity, when we Come out of the pandemic, to be a much stronger company than it was coming into it because of all of these trends, but like every company, we're impacted by it, our customers are impacted by it. We support a number of travel companies and different ticketing companies and event companies and And so, we're not immune from some of the trends that are happening. But we're very fortunate in that we have a number of counter trends that are happening the explosion of digital payments, explosion of net new actives. We're doing a number of things right now. To be helpful in this time of crisis. Because I feel like if you put your employees first, we also said we're not gonna lay off any employees because of COVID- 19. But I think if you put your employees first and you put your customers first, then nobody forgets that. And you come out of this in a really strong position Because, you know people are always there and good times for you. It's when they're there and more difficult times that people remember. You know, I meet every single day with my team on video calls like this. And one of the things I'm telling them is like, this is our time is our time to step up to help. We're really fortunate that we're in the position to be able to go and do that. And we need to do everything we can, because people clearly want and need our products and services. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How PayPal is responding to the coronavirus crisis

Finance

CEO Dan Schulman spoke with Fortune's Jen Wieczner.

CEO Dan Schulman has a conversation with Fortune’s Jen Wieczner.

Dan Schulman has a conversation with Fortune.