Facebook, PayPal pair up

Facebook members will soon be able to use PayPal to make purchases, the two companies said last week, reports SFGate.

Facebook and PayPal, a unit of eBay, said they have agreed to a strategic relationship that will allow Facebook advertisers to offer the PayPal online payment system as an option.

Facebook will also offer PayPal for members to purchase virtual goods through its own Facebook Credits, which the Palo Alto social media giant has been testing for some games and applications.

Suppliers defend chip, PIN

Banking industry suppliers have lined up to defend chip and PIN, following the release of research last week from Cambridge University demonstrating how cyber crooks might be able to bypass security controls on credit and debit card transactions in shops, says The Register.

A four-man team from Cambridge University demonstrated how it might be possible to make 'verified by PIN' transactions using stolen (but uncancelled) cards without knowing the correct PIN number. The man-in-the-middle works by tricking a card into thinking a chip-and-signature transaction is taking place while the terminal gets a signal that a correct PIN has been entered.

But suppliers such as Thales and The Logic Group point out that chip and PIN has been a success in driving down the levels of fraud in retail transactions, while acknowledging that plastic card fraud has been displaced to the Internet and overseas ATM machines, rather than reduced, since the introduction of chip and PIN.

Mobile banking to double

The number of people subscribing to mobile banking services is set to annually double over the next five years, according to new reports, states BCS.

By 2015, the number of people around the world who will carry out financial transactions via their mobile devices will be approximately 407 million, a study by ABI Research found.

While growth in the sector has so far been slow in Europe and North America, Asia-Pacific markets have already increased hugely in number, led by India. There are currently already 52.2 million people who subscribe to mobile banking services within the Asian continent.