PayPal Holdings Inc. reported a better-than-expected third quarter that surpassed Wall Street expectations as the payments company saw a surge in new accounts. 

The company reported a 5% earnings-per-share gain to $723 million, or 61 cents in the quarter, which beat consensus estimates of 52 cents a share. 

The company reported a surge in net new active accounts, rising 16% or 9.8 million to 295 million accounts. 

The company saw a strong increase in business from Venmo, which rose 64% to process more than $27 billion in total payment volume during the quarter. Meanwhile P2P volume grew 39% to $51 billion during the quarter. 

"Venmo continues to be an incredibly powerful platform for engaging consumers," Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal told analysts in the quarterly conference call. 

He said the Venmo figures equal about $300 million in payments a day for an annual run rate of more than $100 billion. He said Venmo has made tremendous strides in use cases, citing the recent deal with Synchony for a new Venmo card. 

Payment transactions rose 25% to 3.1 billion during the quarter and total payment volume also rose 25% to $179 billion.  

Revenue grew 19% to $4.38 billion during the quarter. 

The company expects annual revenue to grow 15% to between $17.7 and $17.76 billion. Earnings per share should range between $3.06 and $3.08 for the year. 

Cover image: PayPal