PayPal’s push to reinvigorate growth in its own-branded checkout has run into a wall of skepticism on Wall Street, even as the payments group’s bottom line keeps improving. Freedom Broker cut its rating on the stock from “Buy” to “Hold” on Wednesday and trimmed its price target to $63 from $72, pointing to a lack of momentum in payments made through the PayPal brand.
The downgrade landed just a day after PayPal had given investors something to cheer. On October 27 the company raised its full-year 2026 forecast for adjusted earnings per share to roughly $5.60 on a non-GAAP basis, up from about $5.38 previously. For the third quarter of 2026, PayPal reported net revenue of $8.58 billion, a 2% increase year over year, while adjusted non-GAAP earnings per share climbed 8% to $1.45.
Insider Sale Adds to the Mix
Separately, a filing revealed that PayPal insider Frank Keller sold a total of 732 shares of the company on October 28, according to media reports.
The shares finished Friday’s session up 1.1% at €53.15, a modest rebound that stood in contrast to the more cautious tone struck by the broker earlier in the week. The analyst’s dollar-denominated target refers to a different trading currency than that euro close.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying PayPal?
Crypto Fee Window Extended
PayPal also used the week to adjust the terms governing merchant transactions made through “Pay with Crypto.” The company said its 0.99% transaction rate will now remain in force until July 31, 2027, extending the life of the fee for its crypto payment offering. From August 1, 2027, a 1.5% rate is set to apply to those merchant transactions.
In the same round of updates to its user policy, PayPal removed the terms hate and intolerance from the rules covering prohibited transactions, according to media reports. At the same time, it narrowed its restriction on misleading information to communications about PayPal transactions.
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