PayPal Inc. plans to buy online wire-transfer provider Xoom Corp. in an all-cash deal valued at $890 million, the companies announced late Wednesday. The planned acquisition comes less than three weeks before PayPal’s expected spin-off from eBay Inc. and will bring under PayPal’s wing a highly regarded rival in the …

There’s something off about the Apple Watch, especially when it comes to Apple Pay. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up. Let me explain. When I got the watch the other day, the feature I first wanted to activate was Apple Pay, the contactless payment service Apple Inc. …

Despite its strengths, online wire-transfer provider Xoom Inc. faces increasingly tough competition from newer market entrants such as PayPal Inc., which is taking its popular Venmo person-to-person payments service abroad, and from established agent-based providers such as The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc., which are increasing their online …

By Kevin Woodward Encryption technologies, which mask sensitive card data with mathematically derived characters and numbers, appear to be the security method that resonates best with merchants. That’s the result of a Digital Transactions News survey that asked about EMV, tokenization, and encryption. Forty-five percent of respondents cited encryption, followed …

Directors of online auction and e-commerce giant eBay Inc. on Friday formally approved previously announced plans to separate eBay from its big payments subsidiary, PayPal Inc. The separation becomes official July 17, when, under a stock distribution plan, eBay shareholders of record on July 8 will get one share of …

America’s tardiness in adopting EMV chip card technology has long been known to contribute to rising rates of fraud here, but now it appears the country’s plans to convert to EMV are, ironically, causing pain overseas. Fraudulent cross-border transactions on debit cards issued in the United Kingdom increased 25% in …

While social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest develop so-called buy buttons for the ads they sell, third-party developers are looking at extending the same technology across not only social networks but apps, mobile sites, and even emails. One of the most aggressive of these developers, Santa Clara, Calif.-based XpressBuy …

As states and national governments consider regulations for virtual currencies, a new report from a Canadian Senate committee recommends a “light touch” lest regulation stifle a promising young industry. In considering any legislation, regulations or policies, the Canadian federal government should “create an environment that fosters innovation for digital currencies …

Merchant processor Vantiv Inc. has won one of the biggest retail merchant-processing contracts out there—the U.S. Postal Service’s credit and debit card business, including its USPS.com online component. Counting post offices, branches and substations, the Postal Service has more than 35,000 retail outlets in all 50 states, U.S. territories and …

Now that a federal appeals court has refused to stay a lower court’s ruling, merchants are free to induce customers to use cards other than those of American Express Co. while the appeals court hears AmEx’s argument that the lower court erred. That means merchants, at least for now, have …