PayPal to soon offer a stock trading platform for US customers

The company recently hired brokerage industry veteran Rich Hagen as the CEO of a new division called Invest at PayPal, according to his LinkedIn page.

Investing had never been so popular as it is becoming today. Amidst the pandemic, people have lately realized the importance of investing and have been majorly investing in crypto and stocks. PayPal, the payments giant, which has already opened up trading for crypto for its users in the US and the UK, is now ready to allow users to trade individual stocks, according to some new revelations.

As part of the expansion, according to one of the sources, the payment giant hired a brokerage industry veteran to lead “Invest at PayPal.” The company recently hired brokerage industry veteran Rich Hagen as the CEO of a new division called Invest at PayPal, according to his LinkedIn page. He is one of the co-founders of online brokerage TradeKing, which was recently bought by Ally Invest.

This move comes after a massive boom in the trading sectors, which brought millions of new retail investors into the market. Paypal’s rival, Square, has been allowing users to trade stocks as well as cryptocurrency through its Cash app. Robinhood, too, became a publicly traded company and has been the go-to option for new traders.

The meme stock trading action of the last year may have convinced PayPal it can’t let Robinhood or Square take over the market of retail investors who want to easily trade individual stocks. Shares of Robinhood saw a decline after the news came out that PayPal will soon allow US customers to trade individual stocks on its platform.