PayPal Holdings, Inc. faces continuing competition from the likes of Stripe, Block and others, making its latest executive hire of Srini Venkatesan from Walmart all the more important. Over eight years at Walmart, Venkatesan helped bolster the retailer’s digital capabilities to compete with Amazon, most recently leading Walmart’s omni and platforms technology team.

Now, he plans to bring his skill set and mission mindset to PayPal. His appointment is effective as of June 24.

Srini Venkatesan joins PayPal as chief technology officer

Srini Venkatesan, chief technology officer at PayPal | Image credit: PayPal

“I’ve spent my career innovating to create new and improved ways for customers to discover, shop, and buy the goods they want and need,” said Venkatesan upon joining PayPal. “I’m incredibly excited about joining PayPal and bringing together my experiences across tech and retail to personalize customers’ shopping experiences.”

PayPal provides payment processing services to 147 merchants in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by web sales. It also provides payment security services to 21 of the Top 1000.

PayPal experienced strong growth during the pandemic, but as the COVID crisis receded and people began to venture out, PayPal’s problems mounted, including recent rounds of layoffs.

The competitive landscape for PayPal

Experts say Venkatesan is entering a competitive space, but there is room for growth.

Sean Gelles, who is senior director of payments intelligence at consumer research firm J.D. Powers, said J.D. analyzes players in PayPal’s space by their performance in three areas:

• BNPL
• Digital Wallets
• P2P transfers

Each category is analyzed by qualities such as ease of transaction and customer complaint resolution.

“PayPal does not lead in any,” Gelles said. “It performs best in the BNPL [buy now, pay later] study, where it’s above average in overall satisfaction.”

Venkatesan taking on his new responsibilities at a time when PayPal is seeing success with buy now, pay later may not be a coincidence.

“This points to several opportunities for Venkatesan as he assumes his new role,” he explained.

Gelles says that this space is still maturing and rather competitive, but companies that focus on the services that consumers clearly value, like the ease of making and receiving payments or privacy and security, will likely have an edge.

“But customers can easily vote with their digital feet,” Gelles said.

Outlook for PayPal as Venkatesan arrives

Phillip Parker, founder of CardPaymentOptions.com, which covers the payment processing industry, said PayPal has challenges ahead.

“Venkatesan has a difficult task ahead of him,” Parker noted. “The payments industry has evolved since PayPal became a leader in the space.”

Mergers and acquisitions have been one way it has been able to claim market share.

“The company has attempted to stay relevant by acquiring up-and-coming challengers like Venmo,” Parker stated. “However, it still lags in the merchant card acceptance arena — where real money is generated.”

He adds, however, that if Venkatesan is to succeed, he will need to understand what drives businesses to their competitors and then adjust technology, design, pricing and value proposition to return business owners to PayPal.

Parker said that Venkatesan’s time at Walmart, as it transformed itself into a genuine rival of Amazon’s, will help him at PayPal.

“Having experience on the enterprise retail side of payment acceptance will give Venkatesan a unique perspective on changes that can be made at PayPal to gain traction in the retail space,” Parker said.

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