Paypal shares rise as it tops Q3 forecasts

Paypal shares perked up overnight as it reported its third quarter results that impressed investors as the company signed up new customers and released new products.

PayPal's revenue rose 14% to $3.68bn, slightly beating analysts expectations of $3.66bn.

Net income of $436m was up 15% from $380m with reported earnings per share of 36 cents a share up 16%.

Adjusted earnings per share of 58 cents per share, beating the FactSet expectations of 54 cents.

The third quarter had seen record numbers of new customers, with 9.1m fresh active accounts compared to 8.2m in the same quarter in 2017 to bring the total up to 254m. According to PayPal, its active account holders are now completing 36.5 payment transactions per year on average.

Venmo, its peer-to-peer payment app, processed $17bn of payments in the third quarter, growing 78%.

Alongside the results, Paypal announced its new partnership with American Express, which chief executive Dan Schulman said would "continue to add value" to existing customers.

“As pleased as I am with our financials, the highlight of the quarter was our growth in net new actives and engagement,” Schulman said on a call with analysts.

“And while it is still early, our monetization efforts appear to be reaching a tipping point,” Schulman said.

Nevertheless, some analysts bemoaned that Schulman failed to answer questions over how Paypal planned to monetise the Venmo app.