PayPal is reportedly exploring stock-trading platform for its U.S. users

The online stock trading business is booming and PayPal wants a piece of the pie. PayPal is exploring ways to let its U.S. customers trade individual stocks on its platform, CNBC reported on Monday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The report comes five months after payment giant rolled out “Checkout with Crypto” to enable U.S.-based users to trade cryptocurrencies on its platform.

The two sources familiar with the plans told CNBC that the San Jose, California-based payments company has been exploring ways to let users trade individual stocks. There are also some public details about a new executive hire that further corroborated the report.

For example, PayPal recently hired brokerage industry veteran Rich Hagen as part of that move. After leaving Ally Invest, Hagen is now the CEO of a previously unreported division of PayPal called “Invest at PayPal,” according to his LinkedIn page. Before joining PayPal, Hagen was the co-founder of the online brokerage TradeKing, which was recently acquired by Ally Invest. According to the job posting, Hagen’s job description outlines PayPal’s efforts to “explore opportunities” in the consumer investment business.

Online stock trading has been booming especially among retail investors after the U.S. government dolled out billions of dollars stimulus checks to millions of Americans. One of the early beneficiaries of online trading is Robinhood, a commission-free trading app that recently raised $2.1 billion in IPO.