Financial/Banking

San Jose – PayPal is rebranding itself in an effort designed to create a cohesive look and feel across the brand. The program includes a new logo and an omni-channel campaign called “powering the people economy.”

San Francisco – Stock compensation expenses helped produce a net loss of $132.4 million at Twitter Inc. during the first quarter of 2014, compared to a net loss of $27 million in the same quarter of the previous year. Twitter attributed part of the net loss to $126 million in stock compensation expense.

Virtual Piggy’s Oink has appointed Trent Walker to VP business development for key accounts.

Walker has more than 10 years of payments and finance industry experience, working with many of the world’s leading corporations, including Google and Facebook. For the past six years, Walker has held strategic leadership roles within the financial services department at Arvato, the $6 billion per year division of Bertlesmann.

Waban, Mass. – Grocery chain H.E.B. tied with the banking business of financial services provider USAA for the top spot in consumer forgiveness. Based on a study of 10,000 U.S consumers, the two companies both came in first in the 2014 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings, which rates 268 companies across 19 industries.

Seattle -- REI's members recently elected two new directors to represent their interests on the co-op's board of directors.

Karen E. (Kari) Glover and Sharon Philpott were elected to three-year terms and Cheryl Scott was re-elected to a three-year term. Earlier in the year, the REI board re-appointed Chloe Harford and Matt Compton to one-year terms.

Bellevue, Wash. – Eddie Bauer has signed a long-term renewal agreement with Alliance Data Systems Corp. to continue providing private label credit card services. Alliance Data will continue to deliver a marketing-driven private label credit card program that recognizes and rewards Eddie Bauer cardholders and complements the reward incentives the Eddie Bauer Friends rewards program offers customers.

Atlanta - Buxton is launching its Market Share solution for U.S. retailers. Executives in the retail, restaurant and grocery industries can compare their market share performance to that of an aggregated peer group, giving them insights into how their business is performing to others in their market or industry.

Irving, Texas – Net income at Michael’s Stores Inc. soared 36% to $143 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 from $105 million in the same quarter the previous year. Net sales grew 2% to $1.55 billion from $1.52 billion and same-store sales rose 4.2%.

Michael’s credited a 53rd week in fiscal 2013, as well as increases in average ticket size and transactions, as driving its fourth quarter performance.