Online payments

Microsoft Corp. and American Express Co. are vying to take an equity stake in Foursquare Labs Inc., according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Online and mobile payments processor WePay's has seen the number of developers using its application programming interface (API) grow by 284% in the past year.

Twitter Inc. hired Nathan Hubbard, the former president of Ticketmaster, as its first head of commerce, part of a push to enable shopping via short postings on its social website.

Virtual Piggy and American Express are trying to win the attention of gamers by offering them prizes in their favorite online games — but players only get the prizes if they change the way they pay.

Convenience for the receiver will ultimately drive mass adoption of P2P payments and give financial institutions that deploy this service a competitive advantage.

BitPay Inc., a Bitcoin payment gateway for online merchants, has created a simplified interface for consumers and added several plugins to encourage more merchants to accept the virtual currency without writing new code.

Facebook shocked the payments industry during its IPO when it revealed it already got 15% of its revenue from payments. The social network has also proven a fertile ground to other companies that have figured out how to incorporate Facebook's platform into their own offerings.

Payment processor Mercury Payment Systems is collaborating with PayPal to allow Mercury's software developers, resellers and 80,000 mostly local merchant clients to accept PayPal payments in stores.

As check registers and passbooks fade into obscurity for a growing number of bank customers, Realex seeks to further modernize payments by putting a human face on accounts.

Recognition by a market-based standards organization such as ISO, in the form of a three-letter code, would set the stage for increasing market depth and liquidity of bitcoin trading — in turn facilitating overall consumer and merchant adoption.

Youth e-commerce company Virtual Piggy will provide its payment engine to Marvelous USA, which sells video games.

CVC Capital Partners Ltd., one of Europe’s largest private-equity firms, agreed to buy a majority stake in British online payment company Skrill Group Plc from Investcorp Bank BSC in a deal worth $800 million.

Facebook’s new mobile checkout initiative brings heft to the power of social data in areas such as advertising and payments risk, and aims to improve the user experience on mobile apps.

Bitcoin users who help maintain the digital ecosystem's official record of transactions may soon find themselves required to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as administrators of the alternative currency.

A new Braintree service is designed to help market-style businesses streamline the process of splitting incoming consumer payments between their online stores and selling partners.

Canadian financial services technology developer Davis and Henderson closed its $1.2 billion acquisition of Lake Mary, Fla.-based Harland Financial Solutions on Friday.

Stripe, a technology company that helps other companies accept payments online, is formally launching its British service.

Realex Financial Services has launched Realex Fire, an account that enables users to create a circle of people to regularly pay.

Youth payments company Virtual Piggy has integrated with Sulake’s Habbo Hotel, a social gaming and online community for teenagers.

Shopify is integrating payments processing with its online storefronts, enabling merchants to accept and manage Visa, MasterCard and American Express payments directly through Shopify.