First Dividend Amid Performance Slowdown: PayPal Bets on New CEO

PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) today reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, with net revenue rising 4% year-over-year to $33.2 billion and improvements in both operating income and operating margins. The company highlighted robust growth in payment volume, continued share repurchases and strong cash generation. For 2026, PayPal issued guidance calling for GAAP earnings per share to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage, while non-GAAP earnings per share are expected to be roughly flat in the low-single-digit range.

The board of directors also approved PayPal’s first quarterly cash dividend of $0.14 per share—payable March 25—and announced that Enrique Lores, formerly of HP Inc., will succeed as president and CEO. At the same time, the company disclosed stock transactions by key executives: Frank Keller’s sale of common shares under a 10b5-1 trading plan, and Diego Scotti’s conversion of restricted stock units (RSUs) and related tax withholdings.

Following the earnings release and the CEO transition announcement, PayPal shares fell nearly 15–20% in a single trading session and have plunged over 40% in the past year amid concerns that the quarter’s results and conservative profit outlook fell short of Wall Street expectations. Former PayPal president David Marcus has publicly criticized the company’s strategy and urged faster innovation and business realignment.

PayPal is a leading global fintech provider, offering online payments, digital wallets, peer-to-peer transfers and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services in many countries around the world. It competes fiercely in e-commerce payments and the BNPL market with rivals such as Apple Pay, Klarna and Afterpay. Against a backdrop of intensifying regulatory scrutiny and rapid technological change, the combination of a new CEO and the introduction of a quarterly dividend is being closely watched as an indicator of how PayPal plans to balance growth investments with shareholder returns.