With the launch of Apple Pay in late October, and the continued growth of Google Wallet and other digital wallets like Softcard, there are several things card companies, like Visa, want you to be aware of. Visa recently released digital wallet guidelines for merchants, aimed at educating business owners on things they should be aware of prior to integrating with a digital wallet service provider.
Here are the four things, according to Visa, that you should know:
1. Because of the wide variety of product offerings, user experiences and service providers – it can be hard to provide a simple definition of digital wallets.
Despite these difficulties, Visa says all digital wallets share common features like the ability to make payments at multiple merchants through one set of user credentials; the ability to associate multiple payment methods, including multiple card brands; and accessibility from multiple internet-connected devices like smartphones, computers and tablets.
2. Before you partner with a service provider, determine if the company can help you protect sensitive credit card data.
If we’ve learned anything this last year, it’s that data breaches happen. As a merchant, you should determine if the service provider you choose can help minimize the risk of a data breach by removing data shared with merchants, or substituting it with a tokenized value.
3. If your goal is to use digital wallet acceptance as a means to manage fraudulent charges, there are things you should consider.
First, you will want to understand your current fraud trends, risk tolerances, controls and data dependencies prior to integration. After that you will want to keep an eye out for fraud campaigns as the introduction of new payment methods can initially attract attempted frauds. As time goes on, you will want to analyze your fraud control systems and processes. You will want to ensure that whatever systems you integrate with are compatible with your own internal fraud systems – sometimes adding a new service provider can affect your ability to receive certain data and can change risk management rules. This incomplete data can lead to higher fraud penetration and chargebacks, so do your homework and be prepared to make any necessary changes to your fraud systems.
4. Be sure to test prior to live integration. You will want to ensure an effective integration of systems and processes with your own so that you don’t lose out on valuable time and money.
To start, you will want to make sure you follow the service provider’s integration procedures. They often have a very specific set of instructions for merchants to follow, including details on security controls for authentication, key management and application security. Next, you will want to perform testing before you start the integration. You can use a test environment to help identify any issues prior to making a digital wallet available to your customers. You will also want to test the security of the application in case there are issues. Finally, you will want to monitor how well the systems is doing following integration – this will allow you to track any new customer behavior, and will help you detect any issues in the system.
Did you know, as a North American Bancard merchant, you can accept contactless payments? To learn more, visit www.northamericanbancard.com.
