PayPal's CEO Says It Isn't Agile Enough: What Sellers Should Watch

PayPal's turnaround is cutting jobs and management layers. What merchants should watch on fees, products and support, and how to limit single-wallet risk.

Adrian ReyesSenior Payments & Fintech Editor

October 27, 2026 · 7 min read

Smiling colleagues around a conference table applaud as two women shake hands beside a laptop showing charts

Photo: Pixabay

On this page 6 sections

What Enrique Lores Said at Money20/20 2026
Where PayPal's Turnaround Stands After Third-Quarter Results
What PayPal's Turnaround Means for Merchants: Pricing, Products and Support
How Much of Your Checkout Depends on PayPal and Venmo
Lower Single-Provider Risk Without Dropping PayPal
What to Watch in PayPal's Next Merchant Announcements

Key takeaways

Lores spoke at Money20/20 on Oct. 19, 2026. Nothing he said changes merchant fees or products today, but PayPal is cutting jobs and putting new money into Venmo, Braintree and consumer products.
PayPal sets its own merchant fees. They are not Visa or Mastercard rules, so track your effective PayPal rate every month.
"We take PayPal" can mean a wallet button or PayPal processing all your cards. With the second setup, one account limitation can stop every online sale.
Keep the PayPal button, but put card sales on a separate merchant account and get a backup approved before the holiday peak.

PayPal CEO Enrique Lores told the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, that PayPal has been too slow to make decisions and is cutting management layers to speed up. For merchants, the PayPal turnaround hasn't raised fees or shut off products, at least not in anything he said onstage. It is changing who runs each business, how many people are left to support it and where PayPal spends. So sellers should watch three things: pricing notices, product and integration changes, and support quality. They should also know how much of their checkout stops if PayPal has a bad week.

What Enrique Lores Said at Money20/20 2026

Payments Dive reported the remarks on Oct. 20. Speaking with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Lores said PayPal moved slowly under its prior leadership because too many management layers dragged down execution. The company needs to "simplify how we work, remove (and) accelerate decision makers, reduce management layers, and become a more agile company," he said. He added that PayPal has already clarified how decisions get made and who is accountable for them.

Two other comments matter more to sellers. Lores said Venmo and Braintree, the processing business PayPal sells to larger merchants, had been short on attention and investment, and that this has changed. He also said the company's focus had leaned toward merchants rather than consumers, and that PayPal is now rebuilding what it offers consumers. That shift can help sellers, since more active PayPal and Venmo users means more shoppers who want those buttons. But it tells you where new investment is heading.

Where PayPal's Turnaround Stands After Third-Quarter Results

Lores, a former HP CEO who chaired PayPal's board, took over as CEO on March 1, 2026, replacing Alex Chriss. Reuters reported that the board removed Chriss over the pace of change and execution. Earlier in the year, Payments Dive had reported that slow merchant adoption of PayPal's newer checkout technology was holding back growth.

In September, at Goldman Sachs' Communicopia and Technology conference, Lores laid out the plan. PayPal now runs as three units: branded checkout (the PayPal button), processing (Braintree) and Venmo with consumer financial services. The company is targeting $1.5 billion in annual run-rate savings over the next few years, has been weighing divestitures, and is integrating the technology it picked up through past acquisitions.

PayPal reported third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 27. The figures that matter most for merchants:

Measure (Q3 2026)	Result
Net revenue	$8.6 billion, up 2%
Total payment volume	$487.1 billion, up 6%
Branded checkout volume growth	1% to 2%, steady for four straight quarters
Positions eliminated	More than 2,000; three management layers removed in most areas
Full-year non-GAAP EPS guidance	About $5.60, raised from $5.38

The branded checkout and headcount figures come from the earnings call; the rest are from PayPal's release. Reuters also reported that PayPal is using AI chat agents in customer service as part of its cost program.

Read plainly, profit is improving mostly through cost cuts, while the checkout button most merchants know is growing slowly. That tells you where the pressure will land.

What PayPal's Turnaround Means for Merchants: Pricing, Products and Support

PayPal Sets Its Own Pricing

PayPal's merchant fees are one company's pricing, set in its own fee schedule and user agreement. They aren't Visa or Mastercard rules, and PayPal decides when to change them. On the Q3 call, Lores said banking products such as loans, buy now, pay later, and credit and debit cards will play a bigger role in growing transaction margin dollars, the revenue PayPal keeps after transaction costs. A company this focused on margin has reasons to review what it charges, but none of the sources here announce a merchant fee change.

The practical defense is arithmetic. Each month, divide total PayPal fees by PayPal sales to get your effective rate. If that number moves, you'll see it in your own books before you find it in the fine print. Read every policy-update email PayPal sends, and check its current merchant fee page rather than relying on rates you remember.

Products and Integrations May Shift

Three parts of the plan could reach your checkout: integrating old acquired systems, possible divestitures and the new three-unit structure. Braintree merchants may get new features from the added investment, and they may also face migrations. If PayPal sells a business line you use, your contract and support contacts could change hands. None of that has been announced. It's the kind of change a restructuring like this can produce, so watch developer notices and plugin updates on Shopify, WooCommerce and other carts, and place a test order after each update.

Support Will Run Leaner

Fewer staff, fewer management layers and AI chat agents in customer service add up to a different support experience. That matters most when your account is limited, funds are held or a buyer files a dispute. Keep evidence organized before you need it: tracking numbers, proof of delivery, customer emails and refund records.

How Much of Your Checkout Depends on PayPal and Venmo

Here's the point many sellers miss. "We take PayPal" can mean two very different setups. In one, PayPal is a wallet button sitting next to a separate card processor. In the other, PayPal also handles your card payments. In the first setup, a PayPal problem costs you the shoppers who insist on PayPal. In the second, a limitation on your PayPal account stops every online sale.

Take an illustrative store selling $40,000 a month online over a 30-day month ($1,333 a day), with funds moved from PayPal to the bank once a week.

Illustrative scenario	PayPal as a button only	PayPal processes everything
Share of sales through PayPal	30% ($400 a day)	100% ($1,333 a day)
Balance in PayPal just before the weekly transfer	Up to $2,800	Up to $9,333
Sales lost in a 2-day outage or account limitation	$320 (assumes 40% of PayPal shoppers abandon instead of paying by card)	$2,667 (no online payments at all)

The button-only store loses a few hundred dollars and keeps trading. The all-PayPal store loses two days of revenue and may also wait on up to $9,333 in its balance until the issue clears.

To run your own numbers, pull the last 90 days of orders by payment method from your store reports. Open your payment settings and check whether the PayPal extension also renders your card fields. Note your transfer schedule. Then list anything else tied to PayPal, such as subscriptions billed through PayPal, because recurring billing set up there generally stays there, and moving it can mean asking customers to re-enter payment details.

Lower Single-Provider Risk Without Dropping PayPal

Pulling the PayPal button because of a news cycle usually backfires, since the shoppers who prefer it will still prefer it next week. Our look at whether adding PayPal to checkout increases sales covers that tradeoff. The better move is to make PayPal one tender among several instead of the pipe everything flows through.

Run cards through your own merchant account. A dedicated account with a gateway such as Authorize.net or NMI keeps card sales flowing if your PayPal account is limited. MannyPay's online payment processing and payment gateways integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and other carts.
Offer more than one wallet. Apple Pay and Google Pay give one-tap shoppers somewhere to go if the PayPal button breaks. See which digital wallets to accept and why.
Move money out more often. A shorter transfer schedule shrinks the balance that can get stuck.
Get a backup approved before you need it. Underwriting takes time, so apply while your history is clean. Our guide to backup payment processors explains the setup. Disclose your business accurately on every application; splitting or rerouting sales to stay under a provider's limits breaks card network rules and can end with a terminated account and a MATCH listing.
Keep customer records in your own platform. Order history and email addresses should live in your store, not only in a wallet dashboard.

When owners search for PayPal alternatives for business, they usually need a structure more than a substitute: a direct merchant account for cards, plus whichever wallets their customers use.

What to Watch in PayPal's Next Merchant Announcements

Fourth-quarter results will show whether branded checkout volume can grow faster than 1% to 2% through the holiday peak, and whether the cost cuts hold. Watch for divestiture news, especially anything touching Braintree or the products you've integrated. Check policy-update emails for fee schedule changes. PayPal also used its Money20/20 roadmap session to position itself across agentic AI shopping pilots, and any announcements in AI shopping agent checkout may bring new integration work for stores.

The useful thing to do this week is the dependence check above, before holiday volume makes any interruption expensive. If it shows PayPal handling your card payments, request a free quote for a separate merchant account, and a MannyPay specialist will respond within one business day.

Sources

About the author

Adrian Reyes

Adrian Reyes is Senior Payments & Fintech Editor for Beyond the Swipe, covering credit card processing, merchant accounts, payment technology and processing fees.

This article is for general educational purposes and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Card network rules and state laws change; confirm current requirements for your business.