While the internet has made it easy for your startup to reach global customers and obtain payments, cyber breaches remain a threat. Thieves or hackers are always on standby to interpret your clients’ payment information and use it for fraudulent activities.
With the increasing fraudulent cases that surround payments and general identity theft, your business must ensure that it provides secure payment options to customers, both online and in-person. You might also want to ensure that you use a secure option when paying your suppliers, employees, and other bills. In this post, we journey through your startup’s seven most secure online and in-person payment methods.
Secure Online Payment Options
If you are looking for a way to make your online transactions as secure as possible, pay attention to these online payment options:
Credit Cards
Credit cards are among the safest ways to pay or receive payment online. Most credit card providers use security features like fraud monitoring and encryption to secure your personal information and accounts. Besides, you get zero fraud liability to keep you off the hook for any fraudulent transactions incurred on your credit card.
Most issuers adhere to PCI security standards that ensure they offer secure payment processing and credit card transactions. You must research extensively and compare options to get the best first credit card for your startup.
Stored Payment Credentials
According to a recent study, nearly 80% of online shoppers leveraged stored payment credentials to pay for their online purchases for the previous year. Most consumers preferred using a stored credit or debit card rather than stored bank account information. If you intend to secure all purchases through stored payment information, ensure you set up a credit card with zero fraud liability to be your ideal payment method.
Voice Payments
Voice commerce offers your business a unique channel to reach consumers while integrating their shopping experience with daily life. Thousands of customers now authorize payments through their voice.
As a result, most businesses are leveraging voice-activated devices to complete online sales. By the end of 2023, the global value of voice-assistant eCommerce transactions will hit nearly $20 billion. A few examples of voice assistance devices that customers can use to process online payments include Amazon Echo and Google Nest devices, alongside Siri and Alexa.
ACH payments
With Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, you get funds directly from a checking account and transfer them to another bank account. The payment method employs numerous security features, such as encryption and access control implementation, to secure your banking data.
Secure In-person Payment Methods
Thanks to technological advancements, in-person payments are now safer and more secure. The few in-person payment methods that boast robust security features include the following:
EMV Chip-enabled Credit Cards
You no longer have to slide your credit card through a machine to authorize in-person payments. Today, most credit cards have an EMV chip technology rather than a magnetic strip. This technology only allows the transmission of encrypted information from your card to the payment terminal.
EMV-enabled credit cards provide unique single-use encrypted information for each transaction, eliminating the chances of counterfeit fraud. EMV technology continues to expand rapidly across the globe, with about nine in 10 current card transactions happening through EMV-chip-enabled credit cards.
Contactless Credit Card Payments
This payment method leverages a similar technology to pin credit and EMV chip credit cards. With contactless payments, your customers need to hold their credit cards on top of a payment terminal, enabling the terminal to obtain a one-time, encrypted use code to complete the transaction. While contactless payments have existed for a while, the trend gained more ground during the COVID-19 pandemic and is set to continue expanding.
Payment Apps
Digital wallets or mobile wallets have become so popular recently due to their convenience and versatility. With payment apps, such as Google Pay, PayPal, Facebook Pay, and Apple Pay, you can store multiple payment options in a single place for security and convenience. These payment apps allow you to enjoy premium security features, like seamless personal notifications, multi-factor authentication, passcodes, and fingerprint or facial recognition.
A customer needs to enter a passcode or log into the app to process payments easily and quickly. The good thing with payment apps is that they don’t access or store transactional data upon completing a transaction, so nothing can link you back or put you at risk later.
As a business owner, your duty is to guarantee the safety and security of customer payment information and overall data. Besides, you must set up strategies to shield your business from fraudulent transaction disputes that can hurt its reputation and hinder further growth.
