Paypal Holdings, Inc. quarterly report, Q2 FY2022

PayPal Holdings, Inc. — Q2 2022 Form 10-Q

Reporting period: Three and six months ended June 30, 2022. PayPal operates a global digital payments platform and reports as one segment. Amounts are in U.S. dollars; financial statement figures are generally in millions.

Financial performance and key metrics

MetricQ2 2022Q2 2021Six months 2022Six months 2021
Net revenue$6,806 (+9%)$6,238$13,289 (+8%)$12,271
Operating income$764 (-32%)$1,127$1,475 (-32%)$2,169
Operating margin11%18%11%18%
Net income (loss)$(341)$1,184$168$2,281
Diluted EPS$(0.29)$1.00$0.14$1.92
Operating cash flow$1,466$1,306$2,708$3,064
  • Q2 TPV was $340 billion, up 9%; payment transactions were 5.5 billion, up 16%. Active accounts reached 429 million, up 6%. For the first half, TPV was $663 billion, up 11%.
  • Q2 transaction revenue grew 8%; other value-added-services revenue grew 21%. Growth in unbranded card processing and Venmo was partly offset by lower eBay marketplace-related revenue and foreign-exchange fees.
  • Expenses outpaced revenue: Q2 transaction expense rose 21% and transaction and credit losses rose 165%. Management cited higher unbranded processing mix and funding costs, a $114 million merchant-insolvency loss, and increased fraud-related losses.
  • Q2 other expense was $715 million, including $672 million of net losses on strategic investments. The six-month strategic-investment loss was $658 million. Q2 income tax expense was $390 million, with a 796% effective rate, primarily reflecting tax expense related to an intra-group intellectual-property transfer.

Balance sheet, cash flow, debt and liquidity

  • At June 30, 2022, total assets were $77.8 billion, total liabilities $58.0 billion, and equity $19.8 billion. Cash and cash equivalents were $4.6 billion; short-term investments were $4.7 billion.
  • PayPal reported $12.95 billion of cash, cash equivalents and investments for corporate liquidity, excluding customer funds, restricted cash and strategic investments. Management said available liquidity, operating cash generation and expected capital-market access should meet requirements for the next 12 months and beyond; some cash supports regulatory and customer obligations and is not available for general corporate use.
  • Six-month operating cash flow was $2.7 billion, versus $3.1 billion a year earlier. Investing used $4.7 billion and financing provided $750 million; cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash decreased by $1.3 billion.
  • Long-term debt on the balance sheet was $10.2 billion; aggregate principal on fixed-rate notes was $10.4 billion. PayPal issued $3.0 billion of notes in May and repurchased or redeemed $1.6 billion of older notes. It remained investment grade with the cited rating agencies.
  • PayPal repurchased approximately $2.3 billion of shares in the first half and authorized a new $15 billion repurchase program in June.

Material changes, outlook and risks

  • Compared with Q2 2021, revenue increased, but operating margin fell from 18% to 11% and the company moved from net income to a net loss. Management attributed the earnings decline chiefly to expense growth, strategic-investment losses and higher tax expense.
  • Management expected eBay marketplace revenue to continue weighing on revenue growth trends, but to a lesser extent in the second half of 2022. The filing provides no broader quantified financial guidance.
  • A workforce-reduction plan incurred $91 million of first-half charges; management estimated a further $15 million of charges for the rest of 2022 and approximately $260 million in annualized employee-cost reductions, with some savings to be reinvested. Completion and related cash payments were expected substantially by Q4 2022.
  • Macroeconomic risks include inflation, higher interest rates, weaker consumer spending and borrower credit quality, currency movements, and lingering COVID-19 effects. PayPal suspended transactional services in Russia in March; the ultimate financial impact was not estimable, though Russia- and Ukraine-related revenue was not material in the periods reported.
  • Credit exposure grew: consumer receivables were $4.5 billion, up 77% year over year, and merchant receivables were $1.7 billion, up 33%. Consumer net charge-off rate was 4.2%, compared with 3.8% a year earlier; merchant net charge-off rate improved to 3.4% from 8.7%.
  • Notable legal and regulatory matters include OFAC sanctions inquiries, an AUSTRAC investigation, CFPB inquiries involving Venmo and PayPal Credit, an SEC investigation concerning debit-card matters, an FTC inquiry, and related securities and derivative lawsuits. Accrued legal and regulatory amounts were not material, but PayPal said adverse outcomes or non-monetary remedies could have material effects and certain losses could not be estimated.
  • PayPal adopted crypto-asset safeguarding accounting guidance retrospectively: it recorded a $596 million safeguarding asset and matching liability. It also disclosed concentration risk from using one third-party crypto custodian.

Investor verification priorities

  1. Review whether transaction expense and credit/protection losses continue to grow faster than revenue and TPV, and whether the 11% operating margin stabilizes or recovers.
  2. Assess the persistence and valuation sensitivity of strategic-investment gains and losses, which materially affected reported earnings.
  3. Track consumer and merchant receivable growth, delinquency and charge-off trends, and exposure to worsening economic conditions.
  4. Confirm the realized cost savings, additional restructuring charges and reinvestment outcomes from the workforce actions.
  5. Monitor cash available for corporate use versus customer and regulatory liquidity needs, debt maturities, repurchases, and developments in the disclosed legal and regulatory matters.