The company is strengthening its fast-growing BNPL offering to boost customer engagement and local market growth. At the same time, it is preparing to transform online commerce with agentic AI, where digital agents can independently carry out transactions on behalf of users. PayPal plans to capitalise on its trusted reputation and broaden its advertising efforts to reach more Australians, although this evolution could place pressure on traditional payment models.
Currently, PayPal is the second-largest BNPL provider in Australia. Its ‘pay-in-four’ service has grown 6% year-on-year and is now used by more than half of BNPL users in the country. The company says this product is attracting younger customers and new applications such as subscriptions while also enabling larger purchases that increase transaction volumes. With 9.5 million active accounts in Australia, covering about half the adult population, PayPal is using this momentum to fuel further expansion.
A key part of this growth involves PayPal's largest local marketing campaign to date. Advertising is being rolled out across television, radio, streaming and major sports events including the AFL and NRL finals. A global pop culture figure features in the campaign as the company aims to build emotional relevance, reinforce trust and connect with users at younger ages. According to independent research, PayPal is already seen as the most trusted payments provider in the country.
However, PayPal’s push goes beyond payments. The company plans to transition from a payment platform to a comprehensive commerce provider. Central to this plan is agentic commerce, where artificial intelligence enables autonomous agents to carry out purchases or complete business transactions with no human involvement. This shift is being fuelled by a generation of digital-native consumers who expect fast, personalised and seamless shopping.
PayPal believes these AI-powered agents will remove the need for intermediaries between buyers and sellers, making commerce quicker, more intelligent and more efficient. As large language models develop further, the company wants its identity and payment capabilities embedded directly in them. This would position PayPal as a core infrastructure provider for the next era of digital transactions.
This development marks a wider change in how digital marketplaces function. PayPal is repositioning itself to offer not only payments, but also tools for customer acquisition, targeted marketing, loyalty programmes and shipping support. Although this strategy is in its early stages, PayPal’s long-term goal is to become the essential commerce platform for secure, automated and intelligent online shopping.
