Having a secure online credit card payment system is crucial if you allow people to pay via their credit cards. Buyers trust you (and your payment solution) which is why they don’t hesitate to use their cards. It is your responsibility to securely process their credit cards and protect their personal information.
Let me give you a couple of examples of people’s primary hesitation in using credit cards for both online and offline transactions.
As recently as May 30, 2012, the Simi Valley police1 officials busted a credit card fraud ring, arrested four Nigerians on charges of hacking and stealing credit card details that belonged to both US and Mexican citizens. Another significant incident in March of this year, in NYC2 hackers managed to steal 1.5 million credit card details from Global Payments, a leading USA payment processing company. These are just two examples of the million credit card frauds that happen every year worldwide. And such incidents only reiterate the reluctance in people to use credit cards for transactions.
Now, how can you guarantee a safe and secure processing platform for credit cards? Here are some key pointers to help you come to a positive decision.
Secure Code
To protect credit card information from sophisticated hackers, all credit card issuing companies like MasterCard, Visa have developed a unique security code. It is mandatory to create this code when using a MasterCard or VISA credit card for the very first time when transacting online. Henceforth, every time the card is used online the secure code has to be entered to complete financial transaction.
MasterCard Secure Code or Verified by Visa makes online shopping a safe and secured experience since the security code protects you from unauthorized use of your card. Now, a hacker who manages to steal your credit card information cannot utilize the card for any sort of online transactions without access to the secure code. If the hacker persists in his attempts, after three opportunities, the card is automatically blocked by its parent company. Thus, here lies the extra layer of protection to ensure the safe processing of credit cards.
VeriSign Protection
People tend to buy products from websites that offers secure payment processing. VeriSign certified websites are a guarantee that your credit cards will be authorized and processed in a safe environment. VeriSign offers the added security to all transactions, including “Buyer Authentication”.
VeriSign Payflow Pro comes with a VeriSign SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate. SSL Certificate means customers can submit information online with the assurance that they are doing business with a genuine merchant. It also signifies that all your credit card information will be encrypted and protected from interception or alteration over the web. VeriSign’s additional level of anti-fraud features includes Address Verification Service and Card Security Code.
We have already discussed how MasterCard credit card users can activate this code via online registration. Without this code, they cannot initiate any form of online payment processing. Like the MasterCard Secure Code, Verified by Visa protects your Visa card with a personal message and password, giving you the reassurance that only you are the sole user of your card online.
Many online event management solutions offer PCI-compliant payment processing to ensure you accept event or training registration fees in real-time. PCI-compliance is an industry run program to make sure that online credit card processors have state of the art technology, business and security processes.
Acteva is one such Cloud-based solutions providing company that has an online PCI-compliant payment management to let you easily and quickly accept payments via major credit cards, PayPal, wire transfers, and as well as using Your Own Merchant Account through standard payment gateways (Authorize.net, CyberSource).
1 http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/ventura_county&id=8682473
2 http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/08/pf/credit-card-fraud/index.htm
