This week’s Stock of the Week is a pioneer in the field of digital payments, and it’s growing with the help of some of the world’s largest companies.

Digital Dollars

PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL) aims to make digital commerce frictionless—to make it as easy as possible for people to buy things or move money digitally in whatever way they prefer. It recently signed partnership agreements with Facebook to let merchants accept PayPal payments, JPMorgan Chase to help broaden the reach of its Chase Pay smartphone application and with Apple to let customers use PayPal in the App Store and on iTunes.

PayPal added a record 6.5 million new active accounts in the last quarter and now has more than 210 million consumer and merchant accounts. Annual revenue growth is about 18%, with $10.84 billion in revenue last year likely to become $12.84 billion this year and $15.16 billion in 2018.

Formerly a subsidiary of eBay, PayPal is now fully independent and working directly with major payment systems, including giants Visa and MasterCard. In addition to PayPal for online and physical retail sales, it offers Xoom for international remittances, Venmo for person-to-person money exchange, and Braintree as a behind-the-scenes software solution enabling businesses to deliver mobile commerce.

Fiscal year: December. Earnings per share: 2018 est./$1.68…2017 est./$1.36…2016/$1.15.

David Meier is a portfolio manager of the $395 million Motley Fool Independence Fund (FOOLX) and $230 million Motley Fool Great America Fund (TMFGX), Alexandria, Virginia. FoolFunds.com