How Trustworthy Are E-commerce Payments?
Today, businesses depend on electronic transactions and payment processing as their method of receiving payments for their products and services
. This is especially true for e-commerce. One of the main concerns online consumers have when making a purchase is the security in which their payment information is processed. Fortunately, technology has improved to ensure a trustworthy e-commerce payment when purchasing goods and services online.Legitimate e-commerce sites have acquired the latest online security transaction processes and upgrade as new technology becomes available. Online shopping is now much more safe and secure.
Advancements in technology have made the online processing secure and convenient. The payment security process includes:
1. Secure Sockets Layer protocol is used which encrypts financial information such as credit card numbers as well as personal information.
2. The data is then sent securely over a SSL connection. The transaction takes place over a secure encrypted connection such as https://. A distinct session key is created and the private and protected communication connection permits encryption of the data. The data becomes scrambled.
2. An SSL Certificate permits the encryption and contains unique and confirmed information about the certificate owner. Unauthorized users do not have the ability to decrypt the data. If an unauthorized user is able to capture the data, he or she will not be able to decrypt the transaction.
3. A payment gateway is an e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses. It uses SSL 128-bit encoding technology to encrypt and decrypt all the data being sent through it.
When online users look for a trustworthy site to shop, they should look for a trustmark or seal. This tells the user that the webpage has been certified by a third-party that the site uses strict security measures to process transactions. It also verifies that the site has a privacy policy and it is a secure site. A business' trustmark should be easy to see when users browse the site. The trustmark tells people that the site is lawful and their personal information is safe and secure.
All businesses, including e-commerce sites are mandated to be PCI compliant. This means that the business must follow strict security regulations on how to process credit and debit cards, install web application firewalls, and have the latest software to stop viruses, Trojans, worms, and hackers. Once a business becomes PCI compliant they are verified as meeting a strict code of security protection.
In spite of the downturn in the economy, the practice of online shopping is thriving. Online shoppers want to know that the information they provide to a merchant is going to be kept safe and secure. E-commerce understands that earning the trust of online shoppers is essential to increasing and maintaining sales. Because of the concerns about safety when shopping online, e-commerce has implemented a number of security protocols to ensure the safety of their customer's personal and financial data. For instance, integrating web security development services into e-commerce operations is essential to establishing a loyal customer base. When a customer is satisfied with the security and reliability of an e-commerce site, both the business and customer will profit.
by: Adriana Noton