PayPal shares rose nearly 16% intraday, with reports saying Stripe has teamed up with Advent to submit a $53 billion acquisition offer.

The world’s largest private payments company Stripe and U.S. private equity firm Advent International have jointly proposed to acquire established online payments giant PayPal at $60.5 per share, valuing the company at over $53 billion. The offer represents a roughly 28% premium over PayPal’s Tuesday closing price, backed by approximately $50 billion in financing commitments from multiple banks. Under the proposed terms, Stripe and Advent will each hold a 50% stake in PayPal. Following the announcement, PayPal’s share price rose nearly 16% intraday to $54.935, with trading volume exceeding $2.1 billion. To date, PayPal has not responded to the proposal, and it remains unclear whether the deal will be finalized. The two parties held preliminary exploratory talks back in April this year but did not advance discussions at the time. PayPal was once the undisputed leader in digital payments, hitting a peak market capitalization of around $360 billion in 2021. However, amid ongoing market share erosion from rivals including Apple Pay and Google Pay, its market cap fell to roughly $36 billion in June this year, just one-tenth of its peak value. By contrast, Stripe was valued at $159 billion in a February share buyback this year, holding a global payments market share of between 20.8% and 29% in 2025, second only to PayPal. Industry analysts note that Stripe’s core motivation for the acquisition is the value of data and transaction flows tied to PayPal’s 434 million consumer accounts. Since the start of 2025, global fintech merger and acquisition (M&A) deal value has reached $64 billion, a 108% increase from 2024. Recent completed deals include FIS’ $13.5 billion acquisition of Global Payments’ card-issuing unit and Capital One’s $51.8 billion purchase of Discover, signaling a clear acceleration in industry consolidation.