信贷业务正成为PayPal的秘密武器

24岁的田纳西州物流协调员戴维•托莱亚，通常会用借记卡在线购物。最近，虽然暂时待业，手头拮据，他还是从耐克官网上订购了衣服和网球鞋，因为他申请的PayPal信贷（PayPal Credit），允许他在6个月内还清余款和利息。

托莱亚解释说：“我有一张信用卡，但我并不完全信任信用卡公司提供的结算账单。”而他却可以放心地使用PayPal信贷，因为PayPal承诺，只要他在6个月内还清贷款，便可以免付利息。

正是像托莱亚这样的人，将PayPal信贷业务变成这家公司增长最快的业务之一。从2015年感恩节到“网络星期一”，美国消费者使用PayPal信贷的购物总额超过1.66亿美元，同比增长32%。2015年第三季度使用PayPal信贷支付的总额增长了27%。

事实上，PayPal表示，PayPal信贷的增长速度超过了公司的总体业务。

然而，虽然PayPal信贷增长迅速，但它也是PayPal最有争议的服务之一。2015年早些时候，美国消费者金融保护局与PayPal达成和解，PayPal将向消费者退款1500万美元，并因误导借款人的行为支付1000万美元罚款。

消费者金融保护局局长理查德•科德雷表示，PayPal被指控在用户不知情的情况下，擅自为数万名用户办理了信贷服务，而用户却以为他们只是注册了普通的PayPal账户。科德雷还表示，即使收到客户投诉之后，PayPal也未能解决这些问题。

PayPal信贷副总裁史蒂夫•艾洛克表示，公司正在努力提高透明度。

PayPal信贷的前身是BillMeLater。2008年，PayPal当时的母公司eBay以超过10亿美元的价格收购了BillMeLater。这笔交易的目的在于，扩展该公司的金融产品系列，帮助商家获得更多的业务，并增强该公司的欺诈侦测工具。在过去两年，PayPal已经将BillMeLater更名为PayPal信贷，并推出了一个面向商家的借贷项目。

艾洛克解释称，提供信贷服务，有助于将PayPal的支付服务与竞争对手的数字钱包区分开来。作为该公司的核心业务，PayPal数字钱包目前拥有1.73亿活跃用户，在第三季度共处理了12亿笔支付交易。

那些将PayPal作为支付方式之一的商家，也可以通过两种方式向他们的客户提供PayPal信贷。其一是，凡使用PayPal信贷购物达到99美元或以上的购物者，只要在6个月内全额付清借款，便可享受免息。若超过6个月还款期限，借款者需要按照19%的利率支付利息。

2014年，PayPal推出第二种购物者借款方式，购物金额超过250美元的购物者可以按照12.99%的固定利率，选择6个月、12个月、18个月或24个月分期还款。

除了查看借款者的传统信用评分来确定信贷可靠性，PayPal也开始借助来自Facebook和其他应用的社交数据。比如，一直有活跃的Facebook档案，意味着借款者的身份更有可能是真实的，而不是一位潜在的欺诈者，这意味着贷款风险更低。

艾洛克表示：“我们正在利用所有可以获得的数据。”

艾洛克将PayPal信贷业务近期的迅速增长，归功于消费者尤其是千禧一代越来越不信任传统信贷。他表示，消费者担心传统信贷的隐性收费和复杂条款。

维亚康姆媒体公司最近对约1万名受访者进行了调研。在千禧一代评选的10大最不受欢迎美国品牌中，四大银行均榜上有名。此外，调查发现，53%的千禧一代认为银行提供的产品并无区别。71%的千禧一代表示，他们宁愿去看牙医，也不想听银行夸夸其谈。

艾洛克称，能够吸引年轻用户“是最令我们激动的事情之一。千禧一代想要的是像他们一样在数字时代诞生的信贷选择。”他补充道，千禧一代目前占PayPal信贷用户的33%，显著高于两年前的25%。

PayPal声称，这项信贷服务有助于商家提高销售额。例如，该公司表示，PayPal信贷用户的消费金额要比普通购物者高出25%。购物网站Shop.com的CEO艾迪•阿尔伯蒂表示，PayPal信贷用户的购物金额已经增加了20%，并且更加倾向于购买电视等大件商品。

但也有商户并不看好PayPal信贷。苹果公司一年前在其在线商店推出了PayPal信贷分期付款选项，但最近取消了这一支付选项，该公司并未解释这样做的原因。

弗雷斯特研究公司分析师苏查雷塔•马尔玻罗解释说，商户，尤其是大型零售商选择使用PayPal信贷，对于这项业务的增长至关重要。她说道：“PayPal信贷业务的增长前景，在很大程度上依赖于有多少新商家愿意使用这种信贷方式。”

最近一个季度，PayPal的总收入达到22.5亿美元。该公司并未透露信贷业务所占的比重，但艾洛克表示，它是“重要的组成部分之一”。

此外，PayPal信贷也感受到了其联合创始人马克思•莱文奇恩带来的压力。莱文奇恩最近推出了一款针对千禧一代的信贷服务Affirm。与PayPal信贷类似，Affirm允许用户在结账时获得借款，而不是使用信用卡。其利息低于PayPal信贷，但需要支付一笔预付费用。

未来，PayPal计划继续扩大信贷业务，提供针对不同商品的贷款，如家具或电子产品等。艾洛克说：“我们的目标是为借款人提供更加个性化的服务。”（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

Usually, David Toraya, a 24-year-old logistics coordinator in Tennessee, would shop online using his debit card. But recently, while between jobs and low on cash, he ordered clothes and tennis shoes from Nike.com after applying for PayPal Credit, which let him pay the balance off with interest over six months.

“I have a credit card but I don’t necessarily trust card companies with balances,” Toraya explained. With PayPal Credit, he felt comfortable about its promise that he wouldn’t be charged interest if he repaid the loan within six months.

People like Toraya are making PayPal’s credit business one of the company’s fastest growing individual services. From Thanksgiving through the following Monday, known as Cyber Monday, U.S. shoppers used PayPal Credit for more than $166 million in purchases, an increase of 32% compared to the same period last year. Payment volume through the third quarter of 2015 for PayPal Credit was up 27%.

In fact, the company said that PayPal Credit is growing faster than its overall business.

But while PayPal Credit is gaining traction, it’s also one of PayPal’s most controversial services. Earlier lastyear, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with PayPal that it return $15 million to consumers and pay a $10 million fine for allegedly misleading borrowers.

PayPal was accused of deceptively signing up tens of thousands of Credit customers who thought they were registering for a regular PayPal account, according to CFPB’s director, Richard Cordray. He also said that PayPal failed failed to fix the problems when customers complained.

Steve Allocca, vice president of PayPal Credit, said the company is working to be more transparent.

PayPal Credit is the successor to BillMeLater, which PayPal’s parent at the time, eBay, acquired for more than $1 billion in 2008. The idea was to expand the company’s financial offerings, help merchants get more business, and beef up its fraud detection tools. In the past two years, PayPal has rebranded BillMeLater to PayPal Credit, and introduced a program to also lend to businesses.

Allocca explained that offering services like credit help set PayPal’s payments service apart from rival digital wallets. Allocca is referring to PayPal’s core digital wallet, which has 173 million active users and processed 1.2 billion payment transactions in the third quarter.

Merchants who accept PayPal as a payments option can also choose to make PayPal Credit available to their customers in two different ways. First, shoppers who buy $99 or more using PayPal Credit can avoid being charged interest if the balance is fully paid within six months. After that, borrowers are charged a 19% interest rate.

In 2014, PayPal debuted a second way for shoppers to borrow whereby they can choose between 6, 12, 18, or 24 month payment plans with a fixed interest rate of 12.99% for purchases above $250.

Beyond checking borrowers traditional credit scores to determine credit-worthiness, PayPal has also started looking at social data from Facebook and other apps. Having an active Facebook profile over time signals that you’re more likely to be a real person rather than a fraudster, for example, and therefore less of a risk.

“We are using any data we can get our hands on,” said Allocca.

Allocca attributes the recent growth in PayPal credit to growing distrust of traditional credit, particularly among millennials. Consumers are worried about hidden fees and complicated terms, he said.

Millennials listed the four biggest banks as among the 10 least-loved U.S. brands, according to a recentViacom Media company research study of around 10,000 respondents. In addition, the study found that 53% of millennials don’t think their bank offers anything different than other banks. And 71% said they would rather go to the dentist than listen to what banks are saying.

“It’s one of the things we are most excited about,” Allocca said about appealing to younger users. “Millennials want credit options that are digitally native as they are.” He added that millennials now account for 33% of PayPal Credit users, up from 25% two years ago.

For merchants, PayPal claims that offering Credit helps their sales. For example, shoppers who use Credit typically spend 25% more than average orders, the company said. Eddie Alberty, the CEO of shopping marketplace Shop.com, said that he’s seen a 20% increase in size of orders from shoppers using PayPal Credit, and more of these borrowers buying higher priced items, such as TVs.

But some merchants are not so bullish about offering PayPal Credit. Apple recently removed its PayPal Credit Easy Payments option without explanation in its online store after offering it for nearly a year.

Merchants adoption of Credit, especially large retailers, will be crucial to the service’s growth as a business, explained Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester. “Its growth is heavily tied to new merchants that integrate it,” she said.

In the most recent quarter, PayPal had $2.25 billion in revenue overall. The company declined to reveal how much Credit contributed, but it said that it was “significant part,” said Allocca.

PayPal Credit is also feeling the heat from one of its co-founders, Max Levchin, who recently debuted a credit service aimed at millennials, called Affirm. Similar to PayPal Credit, Affirm lets people obtain a loan at checkout instead of using a credit card. But its interest rates can be lower than PayPal’s, and it charges an upfront fee.

In the future, PayPal plans to continue expanding Credit by offering specific loans for types of items, such as furniture or electronics. “The goal is to be more personal with our borrowers,” Allocca said.