In the world of digital payments, frauds, malware attacks, phishing, etc. are the hard realities. Along with the advancements in digital payments, these threats are growing side-by-side. Payers and payees both have the same level of threat from all these. There are a lot of articles about the safety measures of payers, but we are equally concerned about payees. Here, we present some exclusive digital payment safety tips for the merchants. Delve in:

Common Threats That Damage Digital Payment Safety

According to a PWC PR report, 59% of Indian businesses have faced financial or economic fraud in the last two years. The most common threats include:

• Phishing- Attackers send fraudulent emails, SMS, or calls pretending to be trusted organizations. When victims click links or press keys during calls, they fall prey to fraud.
• Malware Attack- Hackers infiltrate business devices or networks by bypassing firewalls and security systems, allowing them to access sensitive data for misuse.
• Identity Theft- Cybercriminals steal personal information, bank details, and use AI to commit large-scale fraudulent activities.

Master Tips for Digital Payments Safety

Let's not be worried about the threats, rather, let's focus on the safety tips for digital payments:

1. Encryption

Ensure that the payment solution you offer for your business uses encryption with SSL and TLS for ultra-secure data transfer. It safeguards the transactions from unauthorized parties and saves both the payer and payee from potential loss.

2. Multi-Factor Authentication

Whenever and wherever possible, keep adding an authentication level. Right now, transactions are biometric, OTP, and/or PIN-based. If your payment solution allows you to add another level of authentication, just go for it to ensure further safety to digital payments.

3. Card Tokenization

Right now, card tokenization is mandatory as per RBI regulations. With tokenization, raw data of the card is masked under alphanumeric tokens. So, check that the payment solution your business tokenizes the card details and guarantees the safety of your customer’s sensitive information.

4. Stricter Password Policies

It is a tendency to create recognizable passwords every time, but it can be dangerous. For your business account, choose difficult-to-guess passwords. Guide your employees for the same for both their personal and official tasks. Similarly, advise your customers too.

5. PCI-DSS Compliance

A mandatory requirement for card-based transactions. Payment providers must maintain PCI-DSS standards to avoid penalties.

6. Mandatory KYC

KYC is again a mandatory requirement today, so conduct a strict verification of the customers. If any problem is detected, go for a recheck. Do not onboard any user without checking their documents.

7. Transaction Monitoring & Auditing

Do not forget to monitor the transactions to understand anything unusual. Perform timely audits as well. All the advanced payment solutions providers do it automatically to ease the reconciliation process.

8. Timely Software Updates

The fraudsters are updating their skills every other day, and security solutions too bring frequent updates to prevent fraud. So, never miss a software update to keep your entire business safe. Outdated software is more exposed to security threats – so do not ignore the software updates.

Along with these, educate your employees to take necessary actions as soon as they come across anything suspicious. It will safeguard the merchants from bigger financial losses in the coming days. As it was mentioned awareness is the key to prevent digital payment frauds – so take small steps to aware people and bring digital payment safety.

RBI Guidelines on Digital Payment Safety

RBI also comes with active participation to bring awareness among all and regularly shares safety tips for secure digital payments. Along with the campaign of keeping OTP, Card PIN, UPI PIN, and CVV private, RBI started OTP-based high-value transactions. It is termed as AFA or additional factor authorization for high-value transactions. To avoid misuse of OTPs, they use a time limit too.

Awareness + Digital Payment Safety = Strongest Shield to Online Transactions

MNo matter how smart and innovative these fraudsters are, all these activities can be prevented with awareness. In most of the fraud cases, the fraudsters take advantage of a lack of awareness. Sometimes, they create a situation for their prey that they have no other option than to take immediate action. If we look closely, we will find that almost all fraudulent activities can be avoided with just common sense. RBI is spreading awareness in multiple ways, and so are the financial bodies by sharing security tips on what not to do to avoid digital payment fraud. We hope that all these efforts will result in zero payment frauds very soon.