Why Payment Gateway Security is a Must for eCommerce Success

eCommerce is driven by the ease and flexibility of making payments online, digitally, instead of cash. Customers prefer this experience as they can avail discounts, coupons, offers, etc, for making payments online. The fact that 2.77 billion people prefer to buy online from eCommerce stores and pay online substantiates this. However, what about the payment gateway security? Are the platforms where you make payments are safe payment gateway?

Making a payment online means sharing sensitive information like card details, number, and CVV.  If the payment is not happening through a secure payment processor, then the user comes under threat. Digital payment frauds have increased year on year at a rate of 15%, which means the cyber threat is always looming. 

For eCommerce store owners, it becomes very important to ensure safe and secure payment for the users. The payment gateway security is a make-or-break thing for eCommerce business owner.

Payment Gateway Security: Importance for eCommerce

For an eCommerce store, online payments by customers are an important business activity. The volume of online transactions on an eCommerce platform is an indicator of its growth. Given the importance of online payments, the eCommerce stores have to ensure the safety of payments. Payment gateway security is thus a must-have for any eCommerce store.

• Reputation and credibility: An eCommerce store runs its business online based on reputation and credibility from customers. If it fails to provide a secure website payment, then customers would face losses. More than losses, it would create a negative image for the business. This can even lead to the closure of a business. 

• Privacy: The card number, account number, CVV, OTP, etc that the customers enter on the eCommerce website create a data record. These records are sensitive and private information of users that are expected to be protected by the eCommerce store. Payment gateway security provides that security and assurance. Absence of it can cause a breach of the privacy of user information.

• Penalties from regulators: Unsecure payment gateways can get the eCommerce website into serious troubles. Financial regulators like the NCPI, RBI, etc, can levy heavy penalties on the eCommerce store for non-compliance with secure payment methods. Further, this can cause loss of business and reputation as the eCommerce store is flagged publicly.

• Business Growth: For decent business growth, an eCommerce store needs to collaborate and partner with big brands. If the payment gateway security is not up to the mark, then this can be highlighted as a non-serious attitude towards business. Since payment processing is an important part of the eCommerce business cycle, an insecure pathway for it shows that you are not aware or concerned about secure payments. 

• Cyber Threats: Security threats online are growing exponentially. The majority of them are financial threats aimed at siphoning money via unauthorized means. In such a scenario, if you do not have a secure payment gateway on your website, then you are giving an open opportunity to cyber attackers.

Payment Gateway Security: How to get it right

To understand payment gateway security, let’s first understand what a payment gateway is. A payment gateway is an intermediary between the customer and the eCommerce store that facilitates the payments. It is kind of a digital service offered by payment gateways like Razorpay, Visa, Master, etc. Through payment gateways, the user can make payments via different methods like credit card, debit card, wallets, etc. 

It makes it easy for both the customer and the eCommerce store to complete the transaction. Making payments smooth, easy, and flexible is what a payment gateway does. 

Here is how you can ensure the payment gateway security:

• Use tokenization: Tokenization is a popular practice to ensure payment gateway security. It involves : 

• Replacement of sensitive data with a random string of characters called a token

• The token is used for completing the transaction

• In case the gateway is compromised, the token would protect the data as it would be hard to decode and understand

• Compliance with PCI DSS: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a defined set of rules for ensuring payment gateway security. The PCI DSS rules were created by a popular credit card brands to ensure that online payments are secure. It has a set of 12 rules for compliance. If you follow those requirements, then you can ensure a high level of security for your payment gateways.
  

• 3D Secure payments: This is an effective way to stay protected from malicious and fake transactions.

• It involves checking of the identity of the cardholder to ensure that the payment is genuine or not

• Adds another layer of security over the CVV, and OTP based requirements

• Make sure that no one except the cardholder uses the card for transactions

• FDS: Fraud detection system (FDS) is a complete and effective system that is used by payment gateways to ensure secure payments. 

• It checks from what source the payment is coming

• Checks: What is the user’s behaviour

• See what is the transaction value

Through multi-layer checks and real-time fraud detection, it ensures complete security for online payments.

• SSL-based encryption: SSL encryption uses cryptographic techniques to code your data so that it is understood by the payment service provider and the payment gateway. It ensures secure data communication via:

• Scrambling the user-end information like card details

• Encrypting the information to make it unreadable to any third party

• Creates a secure environment for data to flow over the internet

Conclusion

Online payments are the backbone of the eCommerce industry, and payment gateway security is something that protects this backbone from collapsing. As we discussed, an insecure and threat-prone payment gateway can cause business closure and losses. Opting for payment gateways that utilize the security methods we mentioned can be a good choice. To ensure that your eCommerce store runs longer and generates the desired sales, a secure payment gateway is a must-have. Provis Technologies emphasizes the importance of integrating secure and reliable payment solutions to help businesses grow confidently in the digital space.