Recent statistics show that eCommerce website retailers experience 206,000 web attacks per month on average. Cyberattacks are troublesome for you, the merchant, and they are troublesome for your customers, too.

In fact, if customers do not feel secure making an online payment with your business, you risk losing a lot of business. Not to worry, though, because the best payment gateway can help you ensure payment security. Your customers will thank you, and with more business!

How can a payment gateway increase security for your eCommerce website? They help in more ways than one! Keeping reading for the details.

What Is a Payment Gateway?

It’s the technology that a merchant will use so they can accept credit or debit card purchases from their customers. A payment gateway can be for online payments, but merchants also use them in brick-and-mortar retail stores with a physical reading device.

Security Features of a Payment Gateway

Some consumers dislike making online payments because they are concerned about security. That is why, for a small business to be successful in launching an eCommerce website, it must also implement the best payment gateway offering top-notch security.

Customers want to know that you are offering a mode of payment that will protect their personal data from cyberattacks by mitigating vulnerabilities. When working with a payment gateway, you must partner with one that has these security features.

PCI Compliance

You should not work with a payment gateway unless it offers PCI-compliant data protection . That is because, otherwise, you are leaving yourself vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, attackers, and thieves.

The PCI DSS is a set of guidelines that helps merchants like you provide your customers with secure payment solutions.

Data Encryption

A common practice for a payment gateway, data encryption is another layer of protection that prevents hackers from stealing customer data. The best payment gateway will mask their data. They do this by creating their own code.

The payment gateway will turn your customer’s information into a format that needs decryption, and you can read it privately. Only those who need to see it will see it.

Tokenization

This is not like the mathematical formula in encryption. Instead, it is a method that is random for securing data. Here, the actual numbers for the credit card payment are replaced with characters at random.

This is a code or “token.” You cannot trace it to a cardholder.

If a cybercriminal is successful in a data breach, they still cannot decode the characters and, therefore cannot piece together real card numbers. A “token vault,” or a database, stores both the code and the actual information.

Hashing

This is a one-way process. With hashing, an algorithm will transform raw data into a line of alphanumeric characters, which makes reading it impossible. These characters are the value, or “hash code.” With hashing, you cannot reverse this process.

What You Can Do When Collecting Online Payments

While the payment gateway will offer protection, there are security measures you can take as well as the merchant. First, require that your customers practice using strong passwords with their accounts.

Cybercriminals are experts at cracking security passwords with an easy-to-guess combination of names and birthdays. When customers use strong passwords, this goes a long way in adding another important layer to maintain security.

Customers may not enjoy having to choose a strong password because they get fatigued from creating passwords for all their accounts. Then, they must remember which is which. That is why it is important to offer an easy to access their account if they forget with a “forgot my password” button.

Request the CVV

The CVV code is the Card Verification Value, often found on the back side of a physical credit card. This is one way you can verify card-not-present online payments. You can request the CVV over the phone or online.

This information is only available with the physical card, so merchants can better validate transactions from cards that are not stolen.

Use SCA: Strong Customer Authentication

SCA reduces fraud. You can increase online payment security with SCA because you are asking for two or more elements during the authentication process. For instance, you can ask for:

When protecting your customers and assuring efficient processing of online payments, there is a significant benefit to adding layers of security.

Monitor Fraud Continuously

The best payment gateway can play an integral role in this. They must have a way to detect and manage fraud with a built-in fraud monitoring solution. This identifies orders where there is a tremendous risk of fraudulent activities .

As the business, however, you can set the rules which revolve around your risk tolerance and are based on your situation or industry. This kind of monitoring will reject transactions that are too high-risk or segment them into an area for manual approval before completing the transaction.

The Best Payment Gateway For High-Risk Merchants

For 15 years, Zen Payments has been helping high-risk merchants provide their customers with secure online payments with a payment gateway that supports your industry. With Zen Payments, you get same-day funding, full chargeback protection, no-set up fees, and much more.

Offering the lowest rates in the industry, the professionals at Zen Payments will help you get your account approved from start to finish! Contact Zen Payments today to learn more about a secure payment gateway for your eCommerce website.