E-Commerce

A recent survey of financial institutions and service providers shows that while attempted takeovers of financial accounts by computer hackers and thieves increased last year, the percentage of successful takeovers dropped. Meanwhile, PayPal Inc. announced a program to pay security researchers for finding flaws in its system. In its second …

Facebook Inc. has just done the equivalent of dumping the euro in favor of national currencies with its new policy that will phase out the Facebook Credits virtual currency. The huge social network, which also is introducing a way to pay for subscriptions, says the changes will simplify the user …

American Express Co. extended the reach of its Serve digital and prepaid card platform with a rewards program it announced on Tuesday with leading online game developer Zynga Inc. The big prepaid card program manager Green Dot Corp., meanwhile, disclosed a distribution deal with Dollar Stores Inc. and the renewal …

Online travel agencies are well-known fraud targets, and now new data from CyberSource Corp. suggest that fraudsters make more attempts against them than other sectors of the travel industry. But the data also show that the so-called OTAs’ fraud losses as a percentage of revenue are actually less than elsewhere …

EBay Inc. on Thursday named long-time telecommunications entrepreneur David Marcus as the new president of its PayPal Inc. e-commerce payments unit. Marcus, who as vice president of mobile at PayPal has been shaping the San Jose, Calif.-based processor’s strategic shift into physical-world payments, succeeds Scott Thompson, who left PayPal in …

The Western Union Co. took a decisive step into digital payments and online shopping with the launch last week of the WU Pay platform. The platform allows shoppers in the U.S. to pay for online purchases from their existing bank accounts or in cash at Western Union agent locations. Customers …

Groupon Inc.’s acquisition of a Web site that lets processors bid for merchant contracts represents a big opportunity for the online rewards giant but also underscores the dependence of such services on the merchant-acquiring business, a researcher who follows acquiring says. In the deal, announced on Friday, Groupon bought FeeFighters, …

Amazon.com Inc. quietly killed its PayPhrase online-authentication service on Feb. 20, not quite two-and-a-half years after introducing the system. The PayPhrase credentials system allowed online shoppers to check out using only a word or phrase of their choosing and a PIN that they had registered with the Amazon Payments service. …

Financial institutions have much to gain from fees and cost savings if they offer person-to-person payments and get it right, according to representatives of three leading P2P networks who spoke on a panel at a banking conference on Monday. The keys to getting this relatively nascent payment form right lie …

With rumors swirling that it is close to launching a mobile-acceptance device for small merchants, PayPal Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a digital wallet that offers a raft of new features at a time when major rivals like Google Inc. and Visa Inc. are introducing new wallets. PayPal’s product, which it …