Everything You Should Know About Payment Security

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Technology development, a growing number of online transactions, and a fast-paced lifestyle create new opportunities for cybercriminals. As an online merchant, you need to provide the highest level of payment security to assure your customers that their data are safe.

How do you provide secure online payments?

As it is your responsibility to keep the purchasing process under control and reduce the risk of fraud at every step of checkout, you should provide solutions that reduce the vulnerable points of payment processing.

Read on to learn the most important things that will keep your payments secure.

SSL protocol

The first thing that is crucial for your payment security is ensuring that you have an SSL protocol implemented on your website. It helps you to encrypt information that goes through the site, such as credit card details and sensitive data that customers share during the checkout process.

Plus, the padlock icon visible in the URL bar next to your web address that begins with https tells customers that your website is protected and safe to use. This grows your online reputation, improves brand awareness, and builds your credibility.

The SSL certificate comes with many benefits for your business, so make sure you have one in place.

Tokenization

Tokenization is a technology that makes it easier to improve payment security and provide a payment process without vulnerabilities. It helps to authenticate the customer during the purchase without affecting the security of a transaction.

              

The process uses tokens—random strings of characters that replace sensitive information, such as a 16-digit credit card number. Tokenization reduces the chances of data breach, because if a token is stolen, it will be useless to fraudsters.

How do you prevent fraud?

The number of vulnerabilities merchants might face is constantly growing, so make sure that your system complies with the payment, security, and risk standards of the countries you operate in. Suspicious activities can damage your company’s reputation and could cost you much more than money.

According to the European Fraud Report—Payments Industry Challenges card not present fraud in Europe represents almost 80% of the total volume of fraudulent card transactions. The report also states that the total value of transactions reaches €1.8 billion annually.

Fraud is costly and affects your credibility with a customer’s trust. Its detection can be time-consuming and requires comprehensive knowledge. That’s because suspicious activities can be similar, but are rarely identical, so they are difficult to detect. So, bearing this in mind, consider implementing a fraud protection service or choose a payment gateway with advanced fraud management tools.

Fraudulent activities are made for personal gain and frequently committed against consumers. These could be unauthorized transactions, false requests for a refund, etc. It’s a real threat to payment security, but there are warning signs you can look out for to limit the number of fraudulent activities.

The most common methods to fight fraud are data analysis, pattern recognition, anomaly detection, multi-layer security, and risk assessment. Read on to see what you can do to minimize the risk of being hacked.

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1. Monitor your orders

Monitor orders before shipping them, especially international ones. Plus, pay special attention to late night and early morning orders.

You should also require a signature upon delivery to ensure that the order is delivered and in good hands.

2. Provide updated product or service descriptions

Incomplete or mismatched descriptions increase the chances that the customer will file a chargeback. So, make sure that items on your website come with accurate and detailed descriptions.

You should also check your billing descriptors—they need to match your business name to make consumers simply recognize transactions on their bank statements. If customers don’t recognize your business name, they will most likely dispute a charge.

3. Send confirmation emails

Send email messages right after your customers place an order on your website. Include all transaction details to keep customers informed about the status of their transactions.

4. Provide shipping details

Customers want to know shipping costs and deadlines before they click the Pay button. Provide them with tracking information to keep them updated about where their package is and immediately inform them about delays.

Sometimes, fast shipping can help. People are impatient and waiting too long for ordered items may cause a dispute of the transaction.

5. Make a clear refund policy

Make your refund policy visible for website users and make it simple and easy to understand. Offer a refund when a customer isn’t satisfied with an ordered product. Provide detailed information on how to return the item and how to request a refund. It can help you prevent chargebacks and avoid negative reviews.

Set clear return policies. Return management can be less expensive and comes with less hassle than having to deal with chargebacks.

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6. Keep all information regarding past orders

It’s good to keep details of past fraudulent activities to quickly recognize patterns and spot transactions that are considered risky.

Also, keep detailed records of all transactions, so that it will be easier for you to gather evidence and valid proof when a chargeback occurs.

7. Analyze trends

As fraudsters are getting more and more sophisticated with their attacks, you should follow the latest trends. Doing so will help you understand how they can impact your business and be better prepared for mitigation strategies.

If you work with decent payment providers or fraud detection companies, you can rest assured that they strictly follow all the trends and regulations on the market. But even so be vigilant—it’s better to be safe than sorry.

8. React promptly

Deal with customer issues promptly, as when customers know the status of their inquiries, they are less likely to file a chargeback. If possible, run a customer service 7 days a week 24 hours a day. If that’s not possible, state the support hours on your website and inform about an approximate time frame for addressing customer inquiries.

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