Over the past week, PYMNTS.com’s brief’s coverage in this newsletter has spanned a broad variety of issues. In this column, we take a look at five common elements that link many of those stories, in essence making them the “trends of the week.”

Banking

Banks in the U.S., trying to fight back revenue declines, “boosted lending in the second quarter at a pace unseen since the financial crisis,” according to an FDIC report. Click here for a look at the numbers.

A LinkedIn update recently showed Nick Talwar, until recently the senior VP of Visa’s North American credit card unit, has moved to Amazon as general manager of Amazon Lending. Click here to learn more about Amazon’s purported efforts to get into the lending business.

After years of bank fee increases—both in type and amount—those fees may be on the decline. Click here to learn why.

Citigroup reportedly will sell its last 41 branches in Texas to BB&T for $122 million as part of a plan to focus on digital banking. Click here for more details.

eCommerce/Retail

With the Alibaba IPO mere days away, some of the other most influential forces in Chinese business see it as an opportunity to try and stake their claim to a big eCommerce chunk—before Alibaba’s public financing makes it an even more powerful rival. Click here to learn who some of them areAlibaba will officially make its Wall Street move on the New York Stock Exchange the week of Sept. 8. Click here to learn more about what’s at stake.

Nordstrom reportedly will don the wardrobe of Apple’s apparent mobile payment partner. Click here to learn what clues lead to that assumption.

Europe’s biggest online fashion retailer is testing a mobile-app feature that will let users snap a picture and then get recommendations for similar clothing. Click here to learn who’s behind the app and what’s at stake.

1-800 Flowers has agreed to acquire gift basket makers Harry&David. Click here to learn how online consumers will benefit.

Nordstrom has become the first retailer to launch the Like2Buy platform, which lets customers click on a product image on the chain’s Instagram page and purchase it immediately from Nordstrom.com. Click here to learn what advantages this provides the retailer.

PayPal reportedly is extending the software behind its PayPal Here payment-card-reading device so that the system will also work with brick-and-mortar stores’ existing countertop credit-card readers. Click here for more information on PayPal’s goals for the added utility.

Rocket Internet, the Samwer brothers’ startup incubator, is combining five of its regional ecommerce companies into a single business. Click here for the benefits the new global fashion eCommerce group hopes to receive.

Mobile

At its meeting next Tuesday (Sept. 9), Apple may announce the final elements needed for it to truly leverage the hundreds of millions of payment card details stored within its iTunes and App Store databases, thanks to deals reportedly cut with both Visa and American Express. Click here for more on what the deals may involve.

Fan funding is the ability for someone watching some content on, for example, YouTube to click to directly support that video producer. In a deal with Google Wallet, Google’s YouTube is trying to enable such payments within videos. Click here to learn what’s driving Google’s interest.

The Isis mobile wallet platform launched by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon has a new name, Softcard. Click here to learn more about the name change and what effect it might have on promoting the mobile wallet.

Apple reportedly plans to include the ability to do contactless payments in its rumored iWatch. Click here to learn how it intends to use NFC functionality in its design.

McDonald’s has set a Sept. 15 deadline to have new point-of-sale equipment installed and employees trained for a contactless payment system that uses NFC. Click here to learn why it set such a deadline.

Barclaycard and U.K. mobile operator Orange are shutting down their Quick Tap mobile NFC payments service. Click here to learn how Orange is reacting.

Networks/Cards

A new report sent Visa shares tumbling almost 1 percent late last week after an analyst group said it expected much tougher negotiations between banks and Visa regarding Visa-branded credit cards. Click here for details on what the report said.

Discover Financial Services might find much financial happiness in higher interest rates, according to an analysis published by Barrons. Click here to learn why the firm believes that’s the case.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned credit card companies not to mask hidden charges associated with low promotional interest rates. Click here to learn more about the agency’s concerns.

Point. Click. Save. Pay. That describes the experience that Blackhawk Network will enable its physical gift card users to have with their Google Wallets. Click here to learn more about Blackhawk’s plans.

Visa is getting serious about getting cardholders to sign up for its Visa Checkout mobile payments platform. Click here to learn more about how it’s attempting to encourage more consumers to register.

Canada’s government is pushing Visa, MasterCard and banks to accept lower interchange fees paid by Canadian retailers. Click here to learn more about the government’s goals.

Security

Police in Gadsen, Alabama, have been investigating a multinational PayPal scam that appeared to be based in Alabama. Click here to learn where the sellers may have been from.

Krebs on Security reports that Home Depot may be the latest retail victim of a cyberthief gang in a breach that apparently began as long ago as late April. Click here for more information on just how large the breach might have been. Also, click here to learn just how broad the attack was and here to see how the retailer plans to react through use of EMV technology at the point of sale..

One of the most troubling lessons from the JPMorgan Chase data breach is that organized cybercrime gangs today are quite good at avoiding the patterns detectable by most security software. Click here to learn what else has security experts concerned and here to learn what the FBI said about whether the thieves expanded their efforts to other banks.

Apple is investigating reports that a security hole in one of its online services allowed cyberthieves to download nude photos from the iCloud accounts of celebrities. Click here to learn what this might mean for others using the service.

The Foxconn Technology Group has locked down 10 percent control—after writing a $2 million check—of AirSig, a Taiwanese mobile authentication startup. AirSig’s main product uses the g-sensors in gyroscopes in smartphones to let users unlock their devices by writing their signature in the air. Click here to learn how such authentication might be useful for eCommerce.

Malware at a payment-card processor reportedly was responsible for the theft of details on an estimated 868,000 credit and debit cards used at Goodwill Industries thrift stores. Click here to learn more about the breach.