Simple And Secure Merchant Processing Services

Expanding your bricks and mortar business online is a great move to start gaining from credit card payments. However, failure to establish secure transactions may leave loopholes for fraudsters to suck the life out of your investment. Therefore, security services for your e-commerce set up have become a necessity.

Do you need simple and secure merchant processing services? (Yes, is the anwer). Then, below are the security features that you should consider.

Point-to-point encryption (P2PE)

Point to point encryption is a crucial tool that protects the seller and the buyer from expensive data breach through fraud. By having this tool, you will be able to protect your transaction data, thus keeping you and your clients safe. The security tool is highly prioritized by experts more than EMV and tokenization. Are you wondering how this works? It is not a miracle.

Whenever you swipe any credit card, a series of digital communications takes place, thus leaving the cardholder vulnerable to fraud. Therefore, it is vital to use a combination of secure applications and processes with encryption of data from the point of interaction to the end-to-end safe environment.

When you swipe a credit card, there will be communication between the merchant’s system and the card’s bank to determine whether the card has sufficient money or not to permit further transactions. Thus, point-to-point encryption provides security to the moving data from the buyer into the merchant's system to prevent it from being compromised.

What are the essentials of point-to-point encryption?

• Point-to-point solution provider: this refers to payment gateway provider who protects the cardholder’s data and reduces risk on the merchant.

• Point-to-point encryption solution: this contains encryption and decryption components.

• Point-to-point interaction: Is a terminology for taking customers credit card information.
Tokenization

It is a security measure that prevents you from storing sensitive data or information on your operating system. The only minimal data is sent of authorization codes or transaction IDs.This feature replaces the confidential information with a randomly gathered string of characters that can only be used by an authorized party or trace back the data. It reduces your vulnerability to criminals who are thirsty for the information. This not only works under PCI compliance but also for your data safety.

Biometrics

Biometry presents the most authentic way to keep fraudsters away from your data. It has been used in various styles of which application in e-commerce is incredible. This will surely protect you by limiting any form of impersonation by online fraudsters.

The biometric security method much relies on biological identification measures that are unique to a specific individual, such as fingerprint scanning, DNA matching, Iris scanning, vein patterns, voice matching, facial imaging, and odor recognition.

The biometric methods are not limited only for payment application but can be used in many other ways. For instance, a criminal may try to fake fingerprints but fails to forge the person's biometric data to copy. Therefore, many major financial institutions have integrated biometric identification as one of the ways to verify the authenticity of the customer.

Also, you need to employ some of the essential tools for fraud protection as you also include address verification system and credit card ID. Furthermore, you should also keep updated on the latest criminal tactics and approaches to hack into the card payment processing systems. Otherwise, there is no standard technology to stay immune to cyber crimes but only to integrate the security measures to keep you more secure.

EMV Compliance

This technology uses chip cards or smart cards and has become the worldwide standard for debit and credit cards. It is based on microchip technology developed by EuroPay, Visa, and Mastercard to guarantee the security of payments. The microchip contains better security features than the older magnetic strip debit and credit cards. Moreover, the chip enables cryptographic processing, thus helps to protect data from identity thieves and their accomplices.

By embracing the use of of-of EMV cards technology only, you will be more secure from data theft. Currently, there is a growing acceptance of the technology as the merchants and consumers appreciate the significance of the extra security measure.

Security socket layer (SSL)

Security socket layer is the most reliable security model developed and used for eCommerce business, which is protected through its payment channels. Through this technology, data transmission is encrypted, server and client information are verified. The protocol is designed to prevent compromise of information through forgery while transmitting data over the internet between engaging applications.

Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol(S-HTTP)

It is an advanced version of the standard HTTP protocol with enhanced security to ensure secure authentification, digital signatures, and public key encryption. S-HTTP enabled websites makes the transaction more protected by initiating transaction schemes used by the server and the client to interact. It may seamlessly integrate with the HTTP to ensure optimal end-user protection with an enhanced defense mechanism that will keep you secure.

Digital signature

A digital signature means giving a distinct identity to your message or the process of encrypting the message privately for verification reasons. The linkage between the name and the data does not permit any alteration, and in case the information is compromised, the signature automatically gets invalidated. Therefore, the digital signature assists in maintaining the authenticity and confidentiality of the data.

General business security awareness.

One of the most understated issues in payment security is a robust general awareness of safety for everyone within the business industry. The security sensibility, in general, is critical. Employee access and payment password procedures for your systems and stores you use are essential. Your training guidelines should cover specific education and skills about payment services and security to assist your staff in understanding the responsibility bestowed on the in stopping card data theft and fraud.

Address verification systems for all transaction
It is very crucial for business owners to predict and analyze that the purchaser is genuinely the real cardholder. A wide range of techniques can be utilized to stop the fraud. By integrating the address verification in the online store is the most appropriate way to verify and analyze the scam. The system checks if the billing address used is correct by verifying it with the data from the cardholder's bank. When this is checked, someone with a stolen card may not access the wrong billing address. Otherwise, the incorrect billing address is not a direct ticket to forgery; thus, additional verification measures should be employed.

Compliance with PCI standards.

It means data security standards upon which the merchant has to comply with when taking data from any cardholder. Breaching of the set rules under PCI warrants hefty penalty in the form of fees, fines, and repute damage. While this does not guarantee total immunity to a data breach, PCI compliance goes a long way to help combat fraudsters.

Payment gateway

A payment gateway is an operation that sends your transactions to your credit card processor. It provides a link between the clients’ card and the website of e-commerce. It is an alternative to the physical point of sale (POS) that always found in most retail outlet. Virtual gateway serves to immunize consumer card information by encrypting vital information such as numbers for the credit cards to ensure that information is transmitted securely between the client and the merchant, then between the merchant and the payment processor. A virtual gateway enables the transfer of the data between the payment portal and payment processing company or the acquiring bank.

Recurring Billing

Recurring billing is a service that enables a merchant to deduct some money from the cardholders account automatically in the form of a charge on a prearranged schedule. The merchant always seeks permission from the one-time holder upon for recurring fees until the cardholder withdraws the consent. The types of goods and services include but not limited to Cable bills, utility bill, cell phone bill, magazine subscriptions, and gym membership fees. The recurring bill service ensures prompt payment of bills that helps the merchant with cash flow.

Also, it enhances customers satisfaction by increasing efficiency for the customer to do business with that company. However, the recurring billing can be more troubling to correct when a billing error occurs.

Batch processing

Batch processing is a general term used for often used programs that are involved in executing duties with minimum human involvement. The batch program can run in the absence of user interaction.

The program captures the input data through scripts or command-line parameters. The batch processes are essential to utilize computers and other resources optimally.
Electronic Invoicing.

Electronic invoicing is a type of automatic billing which involves methods that are used by trading partners in monitoring and preventing transaction documents between them from achieving the trading agreement terms. The materials include invoices, purchase orders, debits, and credit notes.

Quick books

These are accounting software packages developed and merchandised by Intuit. They are focused on small and medium-sized businesses. They offer accounting applications and cloud-based versions that serve to manage overall bills and payroll functions.

More about secure and straightforward merchant processing services

Whether you run an eCommerce store or a brick and motor business, your primary role as an entrepreneur is to create a great customer experience. Take Google, for example; they changed their search algorithms to cater to mobile-centric websites when they noticed that more users were looking for businesses via mobile phones than on their laptops or desktops.

Consider this, you are in an already saturated marketplace, and you need to make some changes to your business operations if you want to remain relevant. So, how effective is your payment processing system? Is it simple, secure, fast, or is it dated and full of frustrating features that make transiting with your business a headache?

Can’t see the wood for the trees?

While having hundreds of payment processing companies at your disposal certainly makes choosing one that will be the best fit for your business feel like a losing battle, there are vital things that you can’t afford to overlook.

Transparent pricing with low rates to fewer fees, month-to-month contracts, reliable customer support, among others for example. If you accept various forms of credit card payment methods, choosing the right full-service credit card processing company for your business is very important.

Which are the best payment processing providers?

Pinpoint Payments and Helcim

Helcim is considered one of the most transparent companies in the industry and ideal for small businesses because it offers a wide range of services to all its merchants plus it posts complete rates and fees on its site so that customers know eaxactly what they are paying for.

In addition to having low rates, it’s one of the few processing companies that have a rate lock that guarantees its margins won't fluctuate over the life of your account. It also provides interchange-plus pricing, in-person, online and mobile processing, advanced solutions such as invoicing, recurring payments, as well as volume-based discounts.

Pinpoint Payments is another processing company that is ideal for merchants facing continually changing business environments. They provide a customized rate for every individual merchant, depending on their nature.

Pinpoint payment offer a modern point of sale (POS), card Not Present services, chargeback management, and relationship management. Also, it is ideal for payment processing for high-risk businesses such as for firearm sales and Cannabidiol merchants payment processing.
These are examples of merchant processing solutions that you should be on the lookout for in a full-service credit card processing company. Your merchant account provider should also set you up with devices and technologies that accept payments from Android or Apple phones at your point of sale.

Speed of processing is crucial

Fast payment processing is also crucial because not only do customers want to get in and out of checkout effortlessly, but you also do not want to give them a reason to go to your immediate competitor because you have a slower system.

Mobile payment like Google's Android Pay and Apple's Apple Pay are likely to increase in popularity. You can offer customers a more simple and secure, highly flexible payment option, consequently, attract and retain new customers by accepting mobile payments from a merchant processing company that provides point-to-point encryption services.

The company should also offer bundled solutions such as data encryption and authentication features that protect your point of sales, including services such as:

• Easy application process
• 24-hour customer support
• Reporting capabilities
• QuickBooks Plug-in
• Recurring billing
• Batch processing
• Electronic invoicing
• eChecks for your telephone and mail orders
• Multicurrency processing

It’s a wrap

We hope this guide has given you the confidence to jump into the fast moving waters of e-commerce. Please comment and share to help others.

Sources

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/global/
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/P2PE_v1_1_FAQs_Aug2012.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_to_Point_Encryption