PayPal brings many of its brands under a single umbrella, but Venmo remains a stand-alone

For Frank Keller, it’s a pivotal moment at PayPal. After two years, two CEOs and endless brand strategy meetings, the company is, in his view, ready to redefine the world of business payments.

With the launch this week of PayPal Open, Keller, who is executive vice president for the enterprise merchant group, and his team are consolidating many of the company’s offerings — Braintree, Zettle, Hyperwallet, Chargehound — into a single brand.

Speaking from Germany, Keller told CNBC that the strategy was set in motion after a customer mentioned, “You have all this amazing stuff, but we don’t know about it.”

“I’ve been working, actually for two years now, on this launch, in terms of how do we establish a PayPal as a B2B business,” Keller said. 

PayPal, founded in 1998, was synonymous with its consumer-facing checkout button, but its business-to-business solutions have amounted to an assortment of homegrown technologies and acquired companies with little cohesion. With PayPal Open, those names will fade into the background, and PayPal can focus its centralized effort to become more important to businesses.

Keller likens the effort to other consumer brands that successfully expanded into B2B, pointing to Amazon Web Services as a prime example. Meanwhile, much of CEO Alex Chriss’ early success has stemmed from boosting transaction margins and better monetizing key acquisitions like Braintree, which handles credit card processing for Meta and processed nearly $600 billion in total payment volume last year.

Landing on the name Open took months of market research, internal deliberations and some last-minute strategic pivots. There was even a debate over whether to focus more on Braintree.

“PayPal is one of the most trusted brands” in the world, Keller said, explaining the logic to the decision.

The pressure is on Chriss, who took over as CEO in September 2023 to orchestrate a turnaround after a brutal few years for PayPal.

The company’s branded checkout business — historically its most profitable segment — faces mounting competition. Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shopify’s Shop Pay have all eaten into PayPal’s dominance, particularly among younger consumers who prefer mobile-first payment solutions. Branded checkout accounts for 30% of PayPal’s total payment volume.

PayPal Open is designed to do much more than handle B2B payments. Businesses, developers and partners will also be able to integrate financial services and AI-powered business insights – all through a single connection. For merchants, that means easier access to fraud protection, buy now, pay later options, global transactions in 140 currencies, and lending solutions.

There’s one notable brand that’s not joining the consolidation: Venmo.

The popular peer-to-peer payment app has more than 90 million active users, all in the U.S., and is practically ubiquitous among younger audiences.

“People say, ‘Venmo me,'” Keller said. “It’s such a distinct consumer brand.”

The rollout of PayPal Open begins this week, with a phased transition of brands starting in April, meaning Braintree and Hyperwallet won’t disappear overnight.

Keller said businesses “don’t have to rip and replace their Braintree” or other integrations, but instead gain seamless access to all of PayPal’s offerings. Keller says it’s all about showing that PayPal can be a true enterprise powerhouse.

“We want to be an open platform where businesses, developers and partners can build upon our solutions,” Keller said.