Walmart poaches PayPal CFO

The retail giant announced John Rainey, current CFO at PayPal, as its next finance head. He will start the job on June 6.

Why should we care?
Walmart’s decision to poach a PayPal head makes sense given its fintech-centered growth strategies—but it also raises some red flags. Walmart is gearing up to create a fintech super app for its customer base that offers savings, capital, and payments; it acquired two companies in January, rebranding them as ONE. Complementing this push is Walmart’s equivalent of Amazon Prime called Walmart+. Both efforts hope to monetize Walmart’s massive consumer base more aggressively, doing so through both financial and commercial services. Rainey’s experience at the helm of PayPal, which processes more than $1T in payments per year, may prove invaluable to Walmart. “John’s mix of financial and digital acumen, coupled with his experience leading finance in complex, highly competitive industries, will help us deliver for our customers and shareholders as we continue to transform our company,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in the company’s statement. But PayPal has recently faced major turbulence. Its shares have dropped 43% in the past year, in part due to a botched marketing campaign that produced 4.5 million fake accounts, which caused PayPal stock to dip by 25% in early February. If the SNAFU was a lesson learned, then Walmart may proceed more cautiously to expand its new services, looking to solidify its existing client base without aggressive marketing efforts.