PayPal lands Ticketmaster processing and a Meta checkout slot; branded wallet grew just 2%
In three days PayPal became Ticketmaster's preferred wallet and primary processor, shipped its checkout inside UK e-commerce software, and took one of four slots in Meta's in-chat checkout test. A stock down 27% on the year waits on October 27 earnings to learn which checkout pays.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Live Nation made PayPal+0.13% — PayPal, up 0.13 percent today the preferred payments partner of Ticketmaster and its primary payment processor on October 8 1. PayPal, Pay Later and Venmo now sit across the ticketing platform, with festival perks at Bonnaroo, BottleRock and Lollapalooza under an expanded marketing program 1. PayPal's own data carries the argument: shoppers are nearly three times more likely to finish buying a ticket when PayPal is visible at checkout 1.
A day earlier, Commerce shipped BigCommerce Payments by PayPal to the UK, the first market outside the May US launch 23. One native checkout carries cards, Apple+1.14% — Apple, up 1.14 percent today Pay, Google Pay and buy-now-pay-later from PayPal, Klarna and Clearpay, and the merchant relationship stays with PayPal, not Commerce 23.
Ticketmaster is the checkout PayPal can own
The Ticketmaster deal buys the shelf outright. PayPal processes the payments, fronts the brand shoppers already trust for big-ticket purchases, and gets Venmo and Pay Later products in front of fans financing seats 1. The BigCommerce arrangement is the same trade at software level: PayPal is the embedded money layer in another company's storefront, and the merchant stays PayPal's customer, not Commerce's 23.
Meta's front door charges rent
At Advertising Week on October 6, Meta−0.26% — Meta, down 0.26 percent today said it is testing direct checkout inside Meta AI with four payment partners: Adyen, PayPal, Shopify−0.90% — Shopify, down 0.90 percent today and Stripe 4. The sequencing is the tell. Meta's Muse agent launched on September 8 with Stripe's Link already built in 57. Shopify's Shop Pay arrived on September 21 6. PayPal got its slot the next day 5.
Amazon blocked Muse outright on September 21, and Mark Zuckerberg has said Meta expects to profit by taking a small fee on transactions 7. Meta owns the door and charges rent; PayPal is bidding to be one of four locks on it.
The branded wallet is the laggard
Second-quarter results explain the urgency. Payment volume grew 9% in constant currency to about $486 billion and revenue grew 4.8% to $8.68 billion, but the branded wallet grew just 2% while Venmo and Braintree grew 15%, and the take rate slipped 7 basis points to 1.61% 8. Volume is fine. The branded checkout is the problem.
Venmo and Braintree grew 15% in Q2; the branded wallet grew 2%
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Venmo + Braintree | 15% |
| Total payment volume | 9% |
| Revenue (as reported) | 4.8% |
| Branded wallet | 2% |
Revenue growth has halved since 2023
Data
| Revenue growth, year over year | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | 8.4% |
| Q4 '23 | 8.7% |
| Q1 '24 | 9.4% |
| Q2 '24 | 8.2% |
| Q3 '24 | 5.8% |
| Q4 '24 | 4.2% |
| Q1 '25 | 1.2% |
| Q2 '25 | 5.1% |
| Q3 '25 | 7.3% |
| Q4 '25 | 3.7% |
| Q1 '26 | 7.2% |
| Q2 '26 | 4.8% |
The tape has priced the worry: $54.67 in pre-market trading on October 8, down 27.0% over one year and up 16.4% over three, a rebound whose first leg was a reported buyout approach of about $53 billion that collapsed 98.
October 27 decides which camp gets paid
Bulls read the week as proof the checkout franchise is stabilizing, and one screener still puts fair value 63.9% above the tape 9. Bears answer with the consensus: analyst targets imply 3.5% upside, and the base case lands at $56.92, about 4% above the price, built on 2029 revenue of $38.7 billion growing 4.3% a year while earnings fall to $4.7 billion 910.
PayPal itself expects agentic payments to turn significant from 2028 onward, so the Meta slot is an option, not this quarter's revenue 5. The October 27 report settles it 9. Two numbers decide: branded-wallet growth against its 2% second-quarter print, and third-quarter earnings per share against the guided low-single-digit decline, with the full year already raised to $5.38 8.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
