Person-to-Person Payments

PayPal Inc.'s decision to enter the broad micropayments market could help the Internet payments processor boost transaction volumes and attract new accountholders, but by how much is currently a guessing game, experts say. “I'm not educated enough yet to say whether it's going to be material,” says Gwenn Bezard, research …

Transaction-volume growth slowed somewhat in the second quarter at online processor PayPal Inc., according to statistics released today by parent company eBay Inc., with the number of payments processed reaching 113.2 million, up 2.5% from the first quarter. This follows two consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, but improves on a …

Smaller financial institutions, including credit unions, are increasingly coming under attack by phishing fraudsters, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The report says the number of brands “hijacked” by fraudsters jumped to 107 in May, up from 79 in April and 64 in January. The group, …

Microsoft Corp. is working on new authentication software that will identify consumers to merchant sites on the Internet and initiate payment processing. The software, which the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant is calling InfoCard for now, will be released to developers for feedback by the end of the month, according to …

Internet transaction processor PayPal Inc. will handle settlement of payments between travel agents and hotels, car-rental agencies, and other non-airline travel suppliers as part of a single-source, electronic booking portal offered by a San Francisco-based startup company. The deal helps PayPal further its strategy of moving more payments outside the …

PayPal Inc. saw the volume of transactions it handled in the fourth quarter last year soar 46%, to 99.6 million, over the same period in 2003, while dollar volume climbed fully 51% to $5.6 billion, according to data released this week by the online transaction processor's parent company, eBay Inc. …

Yahoo Finance's decision to shutter its 4-year-old PayDirect person-to-person payment service means it is also discontinuing a service it started up only 10 months ago to allow electronic remittances from domestic users to recipients overseas. The new international payment service was an effort by Yahoo Finance, a unit of Sunnyvale, …

In an effort to make amends to sellers that were affected by its recent service outage, PayPal Inc. will credit all seller transaction fees incurred between 12 a.m. and midnight Pacific time tomorrow. Accounts eligible to receive the credits, which PayPal will distribute by Nov. 25, are premier and business …

PayPal Inc. may have made headlines last week with its intermittent outages, but third-quarter numbers released this week by its parent company, Internet auction kingpin eBay Inc., show the online payments processor racking up significant growth in accounts, transactions, and dollar volume, while continuing to chop fraud losses. San Jose, …

As the PayPal Inc. online payment service returned to normal yesterday, its technical problems of the past several days have raised the specter in some circles of the company's non-bank status. Some observers, particularly bankers, have long argued that as a non-bank financial entity, PayPal is not bound by many …