A report has discovered that businesses in the food and beverage industry, as well as retailers, have the most problems achieving Payments Card Industry (PCI) Compliance compared to other industry sectors.
The Payments Card Industry's (PCI) Security Standards Council maintains a set of standards to which businesses that accept credit card payments must adhere, to keep their customers' credit card and identity information safe. In its recently released report, Payment Card Trends and Risks for Small Merchants, online security firm Trustwave has found:
- 57% of food and beverage companies struggle with PCI compliance.
- 18% of retail businesses struggle with compliance.
- 10% of hospitality businesses struggle with compliance.
- 6% of financial businesses struggle with compliance.
Any business that accepts payments online needs to ensure it is PCI compliant or that it uses a payment solution such as PayPal that is PCI compliant. Let's look at some other simple steps you need to take to protect your system:
Step 1
Make sure you have strong password protection for your system. Every user should have a unique password they use to access your network. Ideally passwords should contain numbers and both lowercase and uppercase letters.
Step 2
Put in place systems to immediately alert management if there has been any malicious activity on the system, for example unauthorised external parties trying to get into the network.
Step 3
Make sure your anti-virus and anti-spam software is up to date and check for new updates regularly.
Step 4
Use third-party payment processing systems from trusted providers such as PayPal. Offering PayPal as a payment option means your business won't need to store sensitive data such as credit card details, which reduces risk to the business.
The Trustwave report shows small businesses are the most at risk of having their systems compromised. Consider how you might be able to follow the steps above to increase the security of your network and your peace of mind.
Finding a strong partner
As a business owner you should be able to reduce the administrative process of setting up your payment account to just a few minutes. You should also look for a payments partner that allows quick and immediate fund transfers, providing you with the better cash flow. These savings in time and money can be redirected into creating better products and experiences, which will build customer loyalty and improve your conversions and checkouts.
With the right payments partner that can provide for these needs, your business can accelerate growth, streamline processes and reduce checkout problems. For a small merchant, payment should be the last thing to worry about.