PayPal (PYPL) Announces New 'Robo Investing' Deal With Acorns

Shares of PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) rose premarket on Monday morning after the company announced it reached a deal with an investment startup in order to offer its customers robotic trading options.

The online and mobile payment powerhouse announced on Monday that it is set to partner with Acorns Grow Inc. to allow PayPal users to invest or set up a savings account with the five-year-old automated investment startup.

PayPal users will have the option to link their funds to an Acorns investment account. Users can then choose between one-time investment options or make recurring payments.

The connected payments giant hopes to give its users the ability to save more easily and create a stable, long-term financial plan. PayPal users who elect to set up an account with Acorns will be able to monitor the activity through PayPal’s online portal or mobile app.

The San Jose, California-based company said it debuted this Acorns investment option to select PayPal customers in the U.S. today. PayPal will roll out the offering to its entire U.S. customer base by early 2018.

Previously, PayPal users had been able to save and invest money through Acorns “Round-up” feature, which allows users to automatically invest in various low-cost, diversified portfolios of ETFs by rounding PayPal purchases up to the nearest dollar.

“Together, Acorns and PayPal are helping democratize financial services and offering innovative solutions to the people typically underserved by the current system,” PayPal VP of Consumer Financial Services Joanna Lambert wrote in a statement.

The company’s push into robotic—or more passive automated investment—comes after it took a minority stake in Acorns about a year ago during a $30 million fundraising round for the startup.

Acorns gears its services towards mobile-focused millennials and people who might find it hard to make investments in traditional ways. The micro-investing app currently boasts more than 2.3 million U.S. users.

PayPal shares surged before the opening bell and are currently up around 0.70%. On Friday, the payments company climbed to a new all-time high after announcing that it made a deal with Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) to sell the firm roughly $6 billion worth of loans it made to online shoppers. PayPal investors then jumped on the stock, as the company plans to use the cash infusion for acquisitions and or share buybacks.

PayPal continues to try to bolster the variety of financial services it offers its customers. This new Acorns relationship comes after PayPal struck deals with over 20 new partners—including Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) , Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) , and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) —all within the last year and a half.

On top of that, the PayPal now partners with credit card giants Visa (NYSE:V) and Mastercard (NYSE:MA) —two brands that it has previously been at odds with. The company is also expanding its reach on a larger global scale.

Before today’s announcement, PayPal’s stock price had already skyrocketed over 93% in 2017.

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