Online payments

China’s fastest-growing online industry segment in the first half was food delivery, as startups backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. touted discounts and marshaled armies of people to get restaurant meals to the homes of almost 300 million.

Germany-based Payworks is the latest to partner with Ant Financial’s Alipay as it works to expand the base of merchants capable of accepting the popular Chinese online and mobile payments app in Europe.

Vienna-based paysafecard, which enables unbanked consumers to make online payments using a service backed by a prepaid card, is expanding to the United Arab Emirates.

APIs allow businesses in every market to make payments online, quickly extend their own payment functionality and roll out new features with minimal effort, writes David Yohe, vice president of marketing at BillingTree.

Wirecard has released a flurry of products in recent months as it builds a global footprint, and its most recent effort focuses on risk management for small businesses that want to sell online.

Snapdeal’s co-founders are resisting the latest acquisition bid from rival Flipkart Online Services Pvt. and the company’s board plans to let all shareholders vote on the offer to reach a final resolution, according to people familiar with the matter.

The incumbents, such as Visa, Mastercard and First Data, are prepared to compete in all segments of the market, writes Subhajit Das, a visiting research fellow at the Christensen Institute from Tata Consultancy Services.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and its Indian associate Paytm E-commerce Pvt are in talks to invest about $200 million for a stake of roughly 20 percent in India’s leading online grocer, Bigbasket, according to a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

Once considered one of the strongest methods of ID, finger biometrics can now be copied and used to expertly defeat biometric authentication, writes Deepak Dutt, CEO and founder of Zighra.

Many companies in the payments industry position themselves as the answer to the competitive threat of Amazon. But that's not the only option out there.