PayPal's (PYPL 2.90%) recently reported third-quarter results were well received by Wall Street. Revenue increased 8% year over year to $7.4 billion, while adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 20% to $1.30. Total payment volume, a key performance indicator for the business, was up 15% to $388 billion.

Although shares of the fintech leader have climbed 13% since the earnings announcement, they were still down 18% year to date as of Nov. 15 and were 81% below their peak price. Clearly, the market is still somewhat pessimistic about this company.

But does this situation present investors with a buying opportunity?

PayPal has a new CEO with new priorities

Even before it was spun off from eBay, Dan Schulman was PayPal's CEO. While he guided the digital payments giant to impressive growth, particularly during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, an argument can be made that he took his attention off the core business and spent too much money on poorly chosen acquisitions.

Luckily, a new CEO is at the helm. During his first earnings call leading the company, Alex Chriss, who came over from Intuit, said that his focus for his new company is to find ways of reducing costs. Additionally, Chriss wants to direct resources to the "most profitable growth priorities." In other words, he wants to create a more efficient organization.

This might be exactly what shareholders have been looking for. From its spin-off to its all-time high share price in July 2021, PayPal's stock was up a whopping 740%. But as I noted earlier, it's been a downward spiral since then. Perhaps this new CEO will be able to spark some sustained optimism from investors.

PayPal is still a solid business

To look at PayPal's stock chart, you might think that this is a company that's in terrible shape. But the numbers prove that this just isn't true.

The payments network continues growing. Total payment volume keeps increasing at a solid clip. That's a positive development because PayPal earns fee revenue on the dollar amount of transactions that occur across its network. Higher payment volumes support greater revenue. Amidst intense competition in the payments space, to see that metric rise is a good sign.

Some bears will quickly point to PayPal's plateauing user base, now at 428 million active accounts. Yes, that figure is down by about 1% year over year. However, its remaining users are engaging with the platform more. The average active account transacted nearly 57 times in the trailing 12-month period. That's up 13% from Q3 2022 and up 42% compared to Q3 2019.

Looking at the big picture, PayPal should continue benefiting from the growth of e-commerce and the ongoing shift toward cashless transactions. Plus, the business benefits from network effects thanks to its two-sided platform for consumers and merchants.

There are low expectations for the stock

It's not like PayPal's business has been struggling terribly. The important metrics continue to show improvement and growth. And its leadership change could be just what it needs to get back to consistent double-digit percentage gains on both the top and bottom lines. However, investors have crushed the stock. And it looks like expectations and optimism are low right now.

As of this writing, shares trade hands at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 11.4. This is ridiculously cheap. For comparison's sake, the S&P 500 trades at 19.7 times forward earnings. This discount for PayPal seems unjustified.

I'd agree that a key risk for the company is just how crowded the payments landscape has become. But PayPal has cemented itself as a strong contender in the industry. Add this to the beaten-down valuation, and it's easy to get excited about the stock.