Online payments

Investor Carl Icahn, who earlier this year pushed eBay to make PayPal a separate company, says he is pleased with eBay's decision to do so but is not totally satisfied with the timing.

By hiring former American Express executive Dan Schulman to lead an independent PayPal, the company is betting that his expertise — bringing innovation to a well-established international payments company — can ensure PayPal's survival.

American Express has named Neal Sample as president of its enterprise growth division.

EBay's planned spinoff of PayPal, announced today, is a necessary and inevitable response to the influx of disruption coming to the payments industry from unconventional sources. As companies like Amazon.com, Apple and Wal-Mart take a growing interest in the payments market, PayPal's status as a unit of a rival e-commerce company limited its role.

PayPal, the payments unit of eBay Inc., will be split off to form its own company under the leadership of new president Dan Schulman, eBay's board of directors announced Sept. 30.

Ukash is expanding its reach in Spain by working with Logista, giving the online cash payment provider a presence at nearly 13,000 more point of sale terminals in the country.

During World War II, Lockheed Martin created a program called Skunk Works, which used specialized teams of developers for lightning-fast brainstorming to accelerate the research and development of new planes. That is how a lot of payments innovation is getting done today.

Payments processor Stripe will partner with Facebook to provide technology behind the social network's "buy" button, according to a report in ReCode.

PayPal is going slow when it comes to Bitcoin, limiting its current focus to emerging channels and relying on partnerships with virtual-currency processors in North America.

Not all transactions have the same need for speed, so the Federal Reserve Banks' financial services unit will start with a narrow focus as it evaluates the development of a faster payments infrastructure in the U.S.

Klarna will target a range of merchants in the U.S., but will focus on e-commerce merchants that ship tangible goods. Its buy-now-pay-later model would, in most cases, result in the consumer paying for the item after receiving it in the mail.

PayPal's making moves to respond to the maturation of virtual currencies, entering into agreements with Bitcoin payment processors BitPay, Coinbase and GoGoin.

Business-to-business payments provider Traxpay Inc. will expand its reach by routing B2B transactions across MasterCard Inc. rails.

Merchants using Revel Systems' iPad point-of-sale software will now have the option to incorporate Web ordering into the system, and will also be able to accept Apple Pay when Apple's mobile wallet launches next month.

SpendSmart Networks has purchased the e-commerce solutions division of TechXpress and plans to integrate the company's online and mobile services with its existing loyalty program offerings.

The Swedish e-commerce payment company Klarna is coming to the U.S. next year.

LightSpeed Retail Inc., a Canadian retail software startup, plans to introduce a payments system and boost its international presence with $35 million in funding from INovia Capital and Accel Partners Ltd.

Consumers in China using the Alipay Wallet will be able to use fingerprint scanning technology from Nok Nok Labs to replace passwords when engaging the wallet for e-commerce payment transactions.

Apriva has added data analytics and business management tools to its payments software for bank and merchant services clients, along with a Web portal where merchants can review consumer behavior.

China UnionPay has an enticing mix of attributes that make it very attractive for a new travel payments play, said Celia Pereiro, head of Amadeus Travel Payments, a unit of Amadeus IT Group.