They sell products, answer questions, and take payments in a process called conversational commerce. Just how much potential do chatbots really have? It’s been one of those days. You could use a drink. But you’re traveling on business, and you’re not sure where the local bars are. And you’re not …

The Federal Reserve’s recently released 2016 Payments Study shows that counterfeiting was the biggest type of U.S. card fraud last year. But other types of fraud, especially card-not-present fraud, are rising quickly, thanks in part to the coming of EMV chip cards and the aftereffects of data breaches. The Fed study says counterfeit fraudaccounted …

With online sales soaring, physical retailers are faced with the challenge of how to recreate the convenience of e-commerce in a traditional store. On Tuesday, a 4-year-old startup called Five Elements Robotics unveiled a device that promises to help with that challenge by putting robots at the service of consumers. Once in …

Visa Inc. says its U.S. EMV credit and debit card volume surpassed 800 million transactions in November, more than quadruple the chip volume from a year earlier. November’s transactions on EMV chip cards hit 805.9 million versus 175.6 million in November 2015, a month after the general-purpose card networks’ EMV point-of-sale liability …

• The law firm Pomerantz LLP, which specializes in securities class actions, said it is “investigating claims on behalf of investors of PayPal Holdings Inc.” The firm says it is looking into whether PayPal executives or directors violated the Securities Exchange Act with respect to the timing of a disclosure of …

• Risk-management and compliance-service provider Coalfire has acquired Veris Group, a specialist in testing and engineering services for cybersecurity. Terms of the deal were not announced. • POS Portal, a point-of-sale equipment distributor, said it now is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council as a point-to-point encryption version 2 key injection facility. Risk-management …

When it comes to the U.S. EMV conversion, it seems as if everything has proceeded more slowly than anyone had expected. Merchants have been slow to adopt the chip technology, EMV certifications have been slow in coming, and consumers and merchants alike have even complained about slow transactions. But now, …

• Yahoo! Inc. disclosed Wednesday a breach of more than 1 billion user accounts in August 2013 that is separate from one involving 500 million accounts the Web giant announced in September. Yahoo said the new breach involved names, email addresses, birth dates, secure passwords, and security questions and answers, but did not …

Tougher security vetting by high-end luxury goods retailers has online fraudsters moving downscale to the still-profitable mid-price range, and crooks also are targeting refurbished consumer electronics, according to new findings from security technology firm Forter Inc. Forter, which has offices in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, Israel, this week released …

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. have been tokenizing their payment cards since 2014, but have not been able to access tokens for cards branded by the other network. That will change soon as the result of an agreement announced separately Thursday by Visa and MasterCard. Under the agreement, Visa will be able …