Technology

Retailers are adopting many innovations to counter the lure of online shopping, which is becoming more of a threat to brick-and-mortar stores as e-commerce spreads to a growing number of Internet-connected devices.

Wirecard, the German payments company, has introduced a wearable wristband for contactless transactions.

Organizations may be being misled about their security risk exposure, and are in serious danger of becoming victims of a security breach, which has become a major problem for merchants and payment companies.

Banks in Europe are selling digital gift cards alongside traditional bank accounts, allowing online consumers to buy credit for Facebook, Nintendo, Spotify and other content providers.

PayPal is revamping its lineup of mobile point of sale offerings, expanding developer tools and adding EMV in the U.S. But its new support for Microsoft devices may have the most impact as it pursues merchants that can already get payment capabilities elsewhere.

In a push to get commuters in Athens, Greece away from paying cash for public transit tickets, the mobile ticketing provider Masabi will add MasterCard's MasterPass as a payment option.

EMV cards are moving payments security in the right direction. But if hackers tamper with the hardware or associated software on merchants' EMV-enabled equipment, they can silently spirit off customer data.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is in talks to buy a minority stake in India's One97 Communications Ltd., owner of an online payments processor, according to people familiar with the matter.

Western Union has begun offering a service that allows U.S. residents to send money to Mexican bank accounts.

The holding company for 15 banks, which is approaching $20 billion in assets, has been testing cardless ATM transactions since the summer of 2013. Now, it is expanding the capability to dozens of machines — marking it the first institution in the U.S. to take the technology, powered by the vendor FIS, into production.