PayPal and Raisin: payment-commoditization and FinTech-platforms

Recently PayPal announced a „strategic investment“ into Germany-based Raisin. Raisin is a savings deposit marketplace for savings interest rates. Whereas PayPal is known to be „the button“ for online payments, it has gone beyond being just a payment provider. In fact, when looking at their goals one could even go so far and question whether they are still a payment provider or rather a FinTech platform focusing on personal finance management. For instance, PayPal’s vision is: to democratize financial services, as we believe that managing and moving money is a right for all people, not just the affluent. Our goal is to increase our relevance for consumers and merchants to manage and move their money anywhere in the world, anytime, on any platform and using any device. [3] In regards to Acorns, the micro-investing service they have integrated into their app, they communicate their goal as: help consumers take better control of their financial lives. Part of this mission is to ensure we’re also helping people build financial wellness. And whereas one could shrug that off as marketing talk their product line-up suggests otherwise, namely that PayPal is indeed becoming a FinTech platform for personal finance management applications beyond payments: Online