What PayPal Is Pursuing with the Slack Integration

Earlier this year, PayPal (PYPL) integrated its payment service with online collaboration software Slack. That allows millions of people who use Slack daily to send money to their peers without leaving the platform. Slack users can send up to $10,000 from the workplace chat tool.

It should be obvious what PayPal is aiming at with the Slack tie-in. Slack provides a fertile ground for PayPal to grow its user base, revenues, and profits. The collaboration software is used by ~5.0 million people daily, and the number is growing as more companies adopt the tool. The ability to send PayPal payments through Slack will be initially extended to Slack users in the United States (SPY), the United Kingdom (EWU), Canada, and Australia.

As PayPal pursues a stronger presence in the lucrative P2P (peer-to-peer) payments market, Slack integration could provide a much-needed tailwind. In 2015, PayPal processed more than $41.0 billion in P2P transactions across its platforms such as Venmo, Xoom, and the flagship PayPal, implying a 42.0% rise from the prior year. It may have processed more P2P transactions in 2016 since it said Venmo alone processed ~$18.0 billion that year.

Worldwide, the P2P payments market is forecast to rise to $898.0 billion by 2024. That compares to $26.0 billion in 2015, as you can see in the above graph and according to Transparency Market Research.

PayPal has faced fierce competition in recent years as more consumer payments move online. That has drawn interest from new digital payment providers such as Square (SQ). Stalwarts such as Western Union (WU) continue to struggle to regain the market share they lost to digital rivals such as PayPal.