Despite the advancements across the digital payments ecosystem – and a plethora of solutions available – there’s still one major dilemma businesses face: how to accept frictionless payments and overcome relying on a clunky experience to provide a secure checkout. On the consumer end, this friction refers to the time it takes to fill out credit card numbers, CVVs, expiration dates and personal credentials.
As the world of digital payments expands, and more consumers gravitate to using options like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay and PayPal, etc., trends suggest consumers will bother less with wanting to type in credit card credentials.
But that’s not to say businesses can ditch knowing how to accept credit card payments. As research shows, the adoption of mobile and digital payments is a slow burn, and credit and debit card payments still dominate online spend.
So what should businesses consider when weighing the best options to accept credit card payments? To start, they should think about meshing convenience with security.
The ‘One Click’ Way to Frictionless Payments
Take, for example, the major eCommerce company that’s demonstrated how to accept credit card payments in a frictionless and secure manner, while eliminating the need to enter credit card credentials for each purchase.
Amazon Payments’ secret, besides the fact that it hasn’t suffered a breach, is that its online payments security model is also transparent to customers. Amazon shares with consumer how their credentials are protected on its site. This includes information about its secure server connection, and how it uses a Transport Security Layer (TLS)/Secure Socket Layer (SSL) that encrypts data. In common terms, that’s the industry gold standard in securing payment servers.
Beyond ensuring consumers their payments are secure (and actually securing them), Amazon’s secret sauce has also been its patented “one-click” payment option that is secure, quick and easy to use, and encourages more impulse purchases.
While not all businesses can be the Amazon of their industry, any business can choose an online payments processor that enables a faster and easier checkout experience.
Reduce the Friction, But Keep The Security
The one problem about reducing payment friction when you accept credit card payments online is that it can lead to unintended consequences, such as an increase in fraud or added chargebacks.
While there is certainly an appeal in offering a friction-free experience, businesses must balance the need to protect customer data with the convenience of enabling consumers’ desire to pay faster.
New data released Feb. 1 from research consulting firm Javelin shows that stolen credit card data jumped 40 percent between 2015 and 2016. What that data also reveals, however, is that while identity theft is on the rise, the rate of fraud losses have remained stable.
This shows that some degree of friction may be needed if that’s the best course for a business to secure customer data. Beyond that, in offering new ways to accept credit card payments, businesses must keep in mind they should be PCI compliant, and follow SSL layer encryption protocols to shield customers from potential breaches.
Once those layers are in place for security, your business can then begin to think about frictionless payments and how to streamline the payment process — whether that be through digital payment methods, or simply by making it faster for consumers to pay in a just a click or two.
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Anna Kragie is a content contributor for Payline Data. She previously wrote for PYMNTS.com, as a Sr. Content Producer, where she focused on financial services and payments innovation, fraud and security, emerging payments, and FinTech news, research and thought-leadership content across the payments industry.
