Top Security Standards and Technologies for Merchant Services

Best merchant services do not simply focus on solving your operational issues on making payments convenient for your customers. Instead, these merchant service companies go beyond the current requirements of PCI to further improve payment vulnerabilities. There are different technologies used in order to promote end-to-end encryption and tokenization.

To find the best provider of merchant service, you also have to evaluate how companies implement security on payment data. Take note that if there is a gap in the security of your online payments, you and your customer will be at risk.

Top Features of Merchant Services for Small to Large Businesses

If it is your first time to bring your business online, you should look for the best merchant service for a small business. Otherwise, you should find large-scale merchant services provider.

Irrespective of the scope of the merchant services to be provided, there are standard features that you have to take regard.

One of the most common features a provider could offer is the virtual terminal. Some sites simply request for a gateway or web page where people could pay through bank transfers. This is an alternative if you are not yet prepared with your online credit card system.

Merchant service industry continues to grow, which is why you have to find a provider that could work with major payment types. You could focus on the major credit card brands first, which are MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and JCB among others.

By having the right credit card processing measures, you could dramatically increase the sales of your company. Take note that most people use credit cards as primary form of payment both locally and online.

In addition, by having credit card payment option, your customers will feel secure, especially now that they do not need to transfer funds from one account to another.

Lastly, it will be easier to track your financial transactions with an effective credit card system. By signing up for a merchant account, you will also receive transaction statements monthly.

Mobile payment is becoming more prominent. It is also interrelated with normal credit card payments. The only difference is that your customers could purchase your products anywhere they may be.

According to Accenture survey on mobile payments, 52% of North Americans are aware concerning the new mode of payment. However, 18% of these people are using the payment solution regularly. From this group, 23% are millennials and 38% are higher-income households, who make payments via their mobile phones at least weekly.

The growth of mobile payments will reach up to 210% in 2016, which is an increase from $8.71 billion to $27.05 billion. It is expected that soon, companies will adopt the new payment processing and step away from just being aware of it.

Out of all the possible payment options for your e-commerce site, you have to assure that the provider guarantees utmost security. They must be compliant with PCI standards. Moreover, there should be security measures followed, such as verifications, authentication layers, and defensive tools against fraud or data breach.

Top Technologies Used to Make Merchant Services Highly Secured

While you are evaluating merchant service reviews, you also have to find the top technologies used to make payment processing secured. It is better if a provider of merchant services go beyond what is possible for data security. This means the firm is making more efforts to use latest fraud protection tools that are tested in a tough environment.

Prior to any application of technologies for security, a provider of merchant services must adhere to the standards of Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. The standards are made in order to promote the protection of customers’ financial data.  Regardless of your business size, the standards are highly imposed to maximize its operational safety.

One of the most important technologies you should integrate to your online payment gateway is a safe login. If you could create a separate module in a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) environment, that would be better for your data security.

A login module is very critical, especially now that even hackers could infiltrate such system features. One of the important features of the login page is e-mail authentication. This is a safety protocol, particularly if a hacker is attempting to enter a customer’s account to gather financial information.

Data encryption is very important during the transportation of customers’ financial information to the merchant services provider. This minimizes the risks of letting sensitive data be collected by wrong parties. This works in line with your login security feature for it avoid chances of cracking passwords.

E-mail protection should also be enforced by the merchant service provider, especially in sending a copy of invoice or receipt to the customer. If your e-mail is not secured, you will likely give hackers chance to get financial data during its transfer. Aside from e-mail protection, you must also discard threads after printing hard copies of them. In addition to this, changing passwords randomly will also keep your e-mail highly secured.

Use virtual cards for online payments if you still doubt credit card transactions. This is a low risk technology that makes use of fake card number in making a purchase. The number generated by the virtual card changes repeatedly.  In other words, hackers will not be able to steal it even if you make several purchases online.

Security assessment is a feature that your merchant services provider could offer. It is a regular test for your website to identify possible loopholes. These loopholes could be used by hackers to infiltrate your system layer by layer. Experts in security assessment will check your network security, possible leakage of data, wireless security, and configuration of your system.

Alongside assessment of your online payments security, your provider may also take care of system updates. Updates are necessarily done in order to avoid errors in your payment gateway, which could be an opportunity for hackers.

Get to Know Merchant Service Providers With Smartest Security Measures

Reviews of merchant services will help you determine which company will give you smartest security measures. If you commonly rely on firms that have been established from the early 90s to ensure its experience in the field, given below are your possible choices:

PayPal for Easy Yet Highly Secured Payments

PayPal is one of the trusted online payment system providers for business. It has been established in 1999, and until now it caters to over 169 million accounts in 202 countries having 25 currencies worldwide.

The company specializes in accepting online payments through credit cards, debit cards, and payments from PayPal accounts. It helps improve conversion rates of e-commerce sites for it has an express checkout feature.

PayPal ensures that your online payments system flow will be protected by industry-leading security solutions. The provider’s system could detect fraud real-time. In addition to this, allowing infiltration accidentally will no longer occur since updates will be progressively done. For strict confidentiality of your customers’ data, extensive data encryption will be applied.

The 24/7 monitoring of hoax will be done by PayPal’s strong anti-fraud team composed of as many as 2,000 specialists worldwide.

NETBilling for Bigger Profits From Secured Payments

NETBilling is established in 1997 and since then, it has supported thousands of merchants worldwide. It customizes its packages based on client’s needs. It also boasts its easy integration and deployment process. For ongoing support, it has a dedicated staff that could support your business through phone, chat, and e-mail.

The firm prides itself with a record of preventing 99% of its customers’ transaction fraud and possible chargebacks. It also has a team of call center agents, who will handle customer’s billing, order placement, verifications, service responses, and telemarketing campaigns (inbound and outbound).

Its agents have been trained in different areas, which include work ethics, communication skills, interpersonal skills, customer service, stress management, telephone etiquette, and telemarketing among others.

Branch Banking and Trust Company for Online Banking Security Anywhere

Branch Banking and Trust Company is a 1991-established company that specializes in different banking services, which include business banking.  It specializes in creating a platform where simple navigation will help your customers check out with ease.

Besides providing your customers convenient means of purchasing products, the provider of merchant services will also help in managing your online statements, bill payments, and fund transfer among others.

Branch Banking and Trust Company is committed to protect your business information along with your customers’ financial data. It uses different strategies in order to protect your data, such as multiple firewalls, 128-bit encryption technology, and security measures for login page.

The provider also advises its clients to consider its Cisco Registered Envelope Service. The web-based e-mail program will provide utmost security for e-mails through digital encryption and secured data transfers. The e-mail security feature will not just encrypt your messages, but also verify if you received a trusted thread through a separate message.

Apart from the three given providers of merchant services, CrowdReviews.com could give you more options. The platform has reviews of merchant services, which are highly trusted to protect your online payments’ confidential information for a lifetime.

Photo by Jim Craige- www.jimprophoto.com