Online payments

For years, it looked to some like Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was simply following in the footsteps of Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest e-commerce company. But when Amazon’s $13.7 billion bid for Whole Foods Market Inc. sent shock waves across the retail industry, Ma looked prescient.

First Data Corp. and JotForm are working together on an integration enabling brick-and-mortar merchants to collect payments online more easily, along with detailed information on forms such as electronic signatures.

After rising 73 percent in 2017, Alibaba shares trade at a multiple of 64 times earnings. Tencent is trading at 56 times profit after a 71 percent rise in its stock.

Alipay and WeChat Pay have become important drivers in the Chinese economy, putting the central bank in a position to force all third-party payment firms to connect to the new clearinghouse.

Both merchants and consumers still see the act of making a payment as a barrier and again look to technology to enhance the experience, writes Chris Koide, senior advisor and vice president of financial services for Bambora North America.

Security companies are using technology to stop more complex fraud based on a smaller amount of data, and investors are taking notice.

Usernames, passwords, device authentication and even biometrics have vulnerabilities. Behavioral identity is much harder for crooks to crack, writes Robert Capps, a vice president at NuData Security.

One of the biggest hurdles that all cryptocurrencies first face is merchant acceptance. Without it, consumer adoption is constrained.

Asia’s much-vaunted tech stocks could be getting ahead of themselves.

Even the most honest customers can look risky if they frequently travel. Their movements can throw off traditional vetting techniques that authenticate transactions by looking at location as a risk factor.