A Look Back At PayPal's Impressive Week

PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL has been on a roll with several new partnerships as the stock continues to trade at record highs.

Over the past week, PayPal has signed new deals with Apple Inc. AAPL, Samsung Electronic SSNLF, Visa Inc V's Visa Europe and JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM Thursday morning. Is a week like this unusual? It certainly is abnormal deal timing, but PayPal has stated that the timing of all these deals depends on contract negotiations.

PayPal has now announced deals with Wells Fargo & Co WFC, Citigroup Inc C, Android, Samsung, Apple, Visa, Mastercard Inc MA, Discover Financial Services DFS and even Facebook Inc FB just in the past 12 months.

Related Link: Jim Cramer Advises His Viewers On PayPal, Under Armour And CVS

Key Takeaways From This Week’s Deals

• JPMorgan Chase: Consumers will now be able to add Chase cards to their PayPal accounts.
• Apple Pay: Improves consumer choice and cuts down competition from Apple Pay.
• Samsung Pay: Samsung users will now be able to choose PayPal as their preferred payment method and use their PayPal account online and in retail stores through Samsung Pay.
• Visa Europe: Enable PayPal to issue debit cards in Europe and provides PayPal with a banking license in Europe.

How Do All Of These Deals Tie Together?

PayPal’s mission has always been about expansion and ensuring it is easy for customers to add and utilize PayPal’s system.

“Over the past year, we’ve been focused on partnering with leaders across the technology and financial worlds — from Apple, Google and Samsung to Visa and Mastercard,” Jim Magats, Vice President and Head of Payments, Product & Engineering, PayPal, told Benzinga. “The agreements we announced this morning with JPMorgan Chase and Citi are two more examples of how we’re partnering across the industry to expand our reach and provide choice and optionality to our consumers and merchants.”

PayPal Is Still Missing One Big Name

Several analysts have highlighted one key aspect that it is common in all of PayPal’s partnerships, none of the deals involved Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN.

While PayPal can be used by several of Amazon’s competitors, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc WMT and Target Corporation TGT, Amazon has chosen to go its own route with Amazon Pay.

Instinet analyst Bill Carcache said he is always fielding questions about Amazon’s threat to PayPal as the company has created its own payment system. “Those threats are not an issue yet, he said, as the 2% cash back likely only appeals to less affluent debit customers and Amazon Pay will not be able to attract the merchants it seeks,” MarketWatch wrote.

When Benzinga reached out to PayPal about their willingness to work with Amazon, Joseph Gallo, senior communications manager for PayPal said, “We have ongoing dialogues with a number of our partners, but we cannot share any specific information from those discussions.”