Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce firm, will take a 28 percent stake in digital mapping company AutoNavi Holdings Ltd, part of Alibaba's move to boost its competitiveness by beefing up its product lineup.

Unlisted Alibaba (Hangzhou, China) will invest $294 million to become the largest shareholder in the Chinese-based firm, according to a statement from AutoNavi (Beijing, China) on Friday which confirmed an earlier report from news portal Sina (Shanghai, China).

PayPal is extending its reach to more physical stores, having signed up 50 merchant acquirers which help process payments but the eBay Inc unit has yet to persuade Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer.

PayPal's expansion into brick-and-mortar stores gives the company access to a market that is roughly ten times the size of the online payments sector where it got its start over a decade ago.

PayPal will soon be ubiquitous in U.S. retail stores, but just being there may not be enough.

The online payment service will take a giant step beyond its Internet roots on April 19, when a partnership with Discover Financial Services (Riverwoods, IL, USA) officially kicks in. The deal means that, by the end of this year, PayPal will be accepted as a payment option in roughly 2 million retail stores that already take Discover credit cards.

Shipments of so-called MFF2 SIM cards designed to withstand the harsh conditions of various M2M deployments rose by 42%, to 5 million, between 2011 and 2012, according to new figures released by trade association the SIMalliance.

The organization said the increase illustrates the potential of the M2M opportunity and expects to see further growth in the next few months as applications are introduced in new vertical markets.

EBay Inc's payments business, PayPal, already lends money to online shoppers, but it is now starting to finance the merchants who sell on the company's online marketplaces.
PayPal (San Jose, CA, USA) has already tested a financing program for eBay sellers in the UK and it plans similar tests in the United States this year, a company spokesman said on Tuesday.

EBay Inc foresees annual earnings growth of 15 percent to 19 percent over the next three years, and is targeting an increase in revenue of as much as 68 percent for the period. The aggressive goals drove its shares up more than 4 percent.

Executives told analysts at eBay's annual investor day on Thursday that they expect revenue of $21.5 billion to $23.5 billion in 2015, versus $14 billion in 2012, as the company expands globally, focusing more on local commerce and using mobile technology to lure shoppers.

Visa Inc has no plans to implement a "digital wallet" fee at this point, Jim McCarthy, global head of product at the payment network, said on Thursday.

The comment came amid concern Visa (Foster City, CA, USA) might follow MasterCard Inc's recent move to impose a new fee on operators of digital wallets, such as PayPal, owned by eBay Inc (San Jose, CA, USA).

French smart card maker Gemalto is forecasting double-digit sales growth this year, helped by strong demand for its services and products in the United States and Asia, after posting record sales in 2012.

Paris-listed Gemalto (Amsterdam, Netherlands), which makes smart chips for mobile phones and bank payment cards, said sales last year were up 9 percent at 2.24 billion euros ($2.90 billion) driven by its mobile business which accounts for close to half its sales and its smaller Security unit, which makes embedded software for electronic documents such as passports.

EBay Inc shares hit a new low for 2013 on Monday as concern mounted about the impact of a new "digital wallet" fee on the company's PayPal business.

MasterCard Inc (Purchase, NY, USA), one of the largest payment networks, said earlier this year that it plans a new fee for digital wallet operators like PayPal (San Jose, USA) starting in June.

The actual dollar amount PayPal ends up paying may not be that large, analysts say.