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REQUIREMENTS FOR
PROCESSING OF CREDIT CARDS
Accepting payments
through credit cards from your customers
is one of the most essential components
of business, today. It is even more
important if you are running an e –
commerce business on the net. According
to reports, more than 95% of the people
prefer the credit card payment mode when
they have to purchase online. Without
the capability to accept credit cards,
your business will be choked to death
before you realise it. Therefore, if you
are the owner of a business, no matter
how small it may be, then you should
apply for a merchant account without
wasting any more time. Once you have
decided to process credit cards, then
you need to set up the infrastructure
for this purpose. Before you make your
choice of the merchant account provider
and the web host you should spend some
time and find out which kind of account
will best suit your business. Once this
is done then you need to shop around for
some time comparing the costs and
quality of various providers. The
process of getting a merchant account
for your business is not such a simple
process, after all and requires you to
put some effort. The consequences and
cost of choosing the wrong type of
account is terrible.
Some of the minimum
requirements for processing a credit
card are:
1)
Shopping Cart – You should find out if
the shopping cart provided to you can be
properly integrated with you payment
gateway. This is very important because
any leaks will cause you to be exposed
to fraud. There are several payment
gateways available in the market. Each
gateway comes with its own standards.
Most of the shopping carts which are
available for free will not support many
of the payment gateways that are
available.
If you want to accept orders and send or
receive crucial credit card data through
email, then you better use some
encryption technologies. PGP is one such
technology that is reliable and it means
“Pretty Good Privacy”. This is the most
commonly used technology for encryption
of emails. It encrypts mails before
sending them and decrypts them at the
receivers end.
2)
Firewall – if the customer’s data and
the credit card information are stored
on a server in your company, then you
have to ensure it is not hacked. You
should have firewall’s protecting your
servers which has the vital information.
Many firms have compromised their
customer’s information by not
implementing a robust firewall. If you
cannot do it by your self then take some
expert help to implement the right one.
3)
Secure Payment Area – This is needed to
protect sensitive data from being hacked
while the transaction is being
completed. Credit Card Fraud and
Identity theft are increasing every day
and therefore you have to implement this
technology to protect your customers.
Consumers don’t prefer to make purchases
at sites where there is no security
provided. Therefore, keep in mind that
if your site is hacked just once then
consumers will not do business with you.
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