Online fraud is one of the most common concerns associated with e-commerce. While many business owners seem to be prepared to go online these days, bravely launching web-based initiatives to sell their goods or services to users across the world, others are still in doubt, especially when it comes to particularly large-scale transactions. The good news is that a broad range of solutions has been developed in order to minimize the risks.
Read below if you are interested in the many ways in which you can secure larger-than-average merchant payments on the web as a business owner. Remember that multiple instruments and approaches can be combined into a powerful fraud-detection strategy suitable for handling serious amounts.
Applicable Standards
To work with some of the most common credit card companies, a business needs to use an online payment service that complies with PCI DSS, or the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which presently specifies over a dozen essential security rules. This set of requirements might give you as a business owner an idea of which fraud prevention efforts have become the standard by now. Complying with it also means better partnership prospects.
Identification and Access Control
Identification issues are one of the key reasons behind cases of fraud in e-commerce. There are multiple ways in which someone other than the owner can be prevented from paying with a card, including the following:
- multi-tier identification processes
- multiple checkups at every stage of the purchase process, including follow-up activities such as refunding
- address verification
- digital signatures.
The lists go on and on. Generally, the purpose is to ensure fault-free identification and prevent fraudsters from using funds (and identities) they don’t own.
Smart Storage and Encryption
It all starts with the login screen. This is the place where most users will enter sensitive data that need to be collected and, to some extent, stored but mustn’t be disclosed. The rule of thumb here is to reduce data storage to a bare minimum and encrypt whatever it’s absolutely necessary to store.
Additionally, it’s almost never a bad idea to tokenize sensitive payment-related information, i.e. turn it into meaningless strings of characters. If these fall into the hands of fraudsters, they are bound to prove useless.
Specialized Fraud Prevention Strategies
Apart from common fraud types such as basic identity theft, more specialized schemes can be applied that potentially endanger even large-scale transactions. Depending on the context in which the payment takes place, these can include chargeback fraud (also commonly referred to as friendly fraud) and other practices. Some gateways offer dedicated services that target such kinds of crime, which is a valuable addition to the basic security kit.
Dynamic Restrictions
Sometimes it can be a viable strategy to restrict interactions with or within certain banks, countries, etc. Dynamic rules that can be controlled manually bring the flexibility of your security system to a whole new level, which is especially important when handling outstanding amounts.
All-in-One Solutions
Accumulating multiple layers of protection one by one can be both time-consuming and confusing. The practice is also associated with risks to the integrity of your anti-fraud approach. However, a trusted merchant gateway service with the above features built into it by design can ensure seamless integration for a smooth yet highly secure payment processing procedure. Provided that the instrument offers enough flexibility to tweak sensitive parameters for extraordinarily large transfers, it can cover all your needs at once. If you are concerned about online payment security, choose a gateway with the fraud prevention functionality embedded in it organically.
