Online payments

Blackhawk Network has completed the acquisition of CardLab, a Dallas-based online provider of business-to-business prepaid incentive and rewards cards.

The term "opinion leader" has been used to describe those consumers who are wealthy, involved in their communities and knowledgeable about the world around them. Turns out, they also spend the most money on credit cards.

The shopping technology vendor Slice is extending its application programming interface (API) for the analysis of electronic payments data, giving merchants visibility into a wide range of consumer e-commerce spending.

Twitter's long-awaited "Buy" button is live, allowing nearly 30 pilot merchants and nonprofits to accept payments from within Twitter's mobile app.

PayStand's integration with e-commerce service provider WooCommerce is meant to enable multiple payment types with very little technology work.

PayPal has launched the PayPal Here software development kit (SDK), which enables merchants to sell in-store or remotely through iOS or Android devices.

Many businesses intentionally delay payments, slowing down the economy, according to MasterCard and Basware, which see an opportunity to clear out the congestion.

Google Inc.'s YouTube now lets Google Wallet users make voluntary payments to publishers on the video site through the addition of a "support" button.

Beer and wine are often used to lower inhibitions about anything new. Why should payment technology be any different? Many companies that manufacture or sell alcohol are at the forefront of payments innovation.

At first glance, it might seem discouraging that eBay and PayPal each list only one woman on their respective executive leadership teams, but to Sarah Hodkinson, director of offers and marketing at PayPal, "looking at leadership in such a narrow, title-driven way is a mistake." In truth, 42% of eBay's employees are women, including 28% of its leaders.

Online electronics retailer Newegg is now accepting bitcoin payments from Canadian customers.

Nearly 20 years ago, Visa executives celebrated a milestone for the card brand's global VisaNet payments network. The system could finally handle 1,000 transaction messages per second.

Citigroup Inc. has begun signing up consumers to use Citi Wallet, which is based on MasterCard's MasterPass digital wallet.

Payza, a payment processor and digital wallet provider based in London, has launched an eGift product for customers in the United States.

London-based Currency Cloud plans to expand its payment offerings to the U.S. to serve businesses that are having a hard time adding automated cross-border transactions to their workflows.

EBay Inc.'s stock price rose as much as 6.8 percent today after The Information reported the company could spin off its payment unit as soon as next year.

Payza, a payment processor and digital wallet provider based in London, has released a tool that allows its merchant clients to accept payments from shoppers who have not previously enrolled with Payza.

Payment software provider Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd. plans to update its mobile wallet with a virtual Visa card for online payments, a move that furthers both its financial inclusion efforts and its bank partnerships.

Navicure introduced a new patient payment platform that allows health care organizations to facilitate bill collections.

Square is under pressure to adapt to the onslaught of competition from the likes of Amazon, PayPal, Groupon and Fiserv, all of which have applied their own spin to the mobile card reader concept. Square has recently made a number of moves to improve its offerings and its image.