PayPal

Both PayPal and Citigroup are taking a bigger role in the market for cross-border payments, a strategy that led both companies to participate in a $50 million round in PPRO Group, a U.K.-based cross border e-payment company.

PayPal's executives likely expected the company's $3 billion buying spree of companies like Hyperwallet and iZettle to dominate its media coverage this month. But a single careless letter has stolen the narrative.

The agency, with others, will work to stop consumer fraud; manager of four Morgan Stanley L.A. offices allegedly ignored harassment allegations.

The final sale price came it at $6.9 billion, or about $900 million more than what the two firms agreed upon when the deal was announced in November.

In the era of digital and mobile payments, many banks and tech companies have strived to completely do away with cash, checks and cards. But quite a few have had to concede that the market isn't quite ready to give up the physical trappings of payments.

PayPal has many brands with which it wants to permeate online commerce, but it doesn't need a separate button for each one.

Earlier this week, the e-commerce payments giant announced a $400 million deal to acquire Hyperwallet and its payment distribution technology. The deal for Palo Alto-based Simility takes aim at a different need: applying machine learning to its data collection to prevent various types of fraud.

PayPal is spending billions on M&A to throttle the heightened competition it faces from the likes of Square and Stripe.

PayPal can combine its payment service, Braintree and Hyperwallet for a variety of use cases for online marketplaces and gig economy workers.

The advancement of digital wallet technology in the past five years may be having a numbing effect on e-commerce merchants, who favor familiar brands over big-name wallet apps.