Ebay, Paypal | featured news

Discover makes headway in bringing eBay's online-payments service to physical retailers, but First Data, one of the country's largest merchant processors, has opted not to support the service.

EBay Inc reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations, but the e-commerce company also gave a cautious forecast for 2013. EBay shares climbed 1.7 percent to $53.80 in after-hours trading following the announcement. Expectations were high ahead of the results because sales data from outside sources suggested strong sales growth from eBay's online marketplace and a solid increase in transactions processed by the company's PayPal payments business.

EBay's first-quarter net income grew 20 percent thanks to higher revenue from its PayPal business and brisk sales at its e-commerce websites. The results beat Wall Street's expectations and investors sent the company's stock higher in after-hours trading.

Yahoo Inc. has named Scott Thompson, president of eBay Inc.'s PayPal division, as its new CEO, the fourth one in less than five years for the struggling Internet company.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday arrested 16 people on charges they participated in major cyber attacks, including an attempt to cripple eBay's PayPal website as retribution for dropping WikiLeaks as a client.

EBay paying $240 million to buy closely held Zong, a provider of mobile payments, as the e-commerce giant seeks to strengthen its PayPal business.

Shares in eBay jump almost 8% after the online auction site's Paypal unit said its revenues would double by 2013.

EBay Inc was sued for at least $3.8 billion on Tuesday by a Connecticut company that accused the online auctioneer and retailer of infringing six patents to develop lucrative payment systems such as PayPal.

EBay's profit nearly quadrupled on strength in PayPal and the core marketplace business as well as a $1.4 billion gain from the selling a majority stake in Skype.

EBay CEO Donahoe pledged to accelerate changes in its slowing online auction business and tap the "enormous potential" for growth in its PayPal business.