Top 5 tips for making secure online money transfers in 2022

Sending money online has become a routine for many users. But when people get used to something, it is easier to lose the track of it and get into a situation where your funds are put in jeopardy. Maxpay has gathered all the necessary information for you to continue making secure payments in 2022 and beyond.

Digital payments industry in 2021

The global digital payments industry is booming all over the world, presenting growth in extreme progression. According to Finaria.it, the digital payments industry is worth around $6.6 trillion this year and is expected to rise by 40% more in the next two following years.

The Statista research presents the location expansion. As the resource claims, the Chinese digital payments industry is the largest one currently on the globe. In 2021 alone it has reached a $2.9 trillions transaction value, creating an almost 17% rise in a year. When it comes to the USA market, in 2021 it has generated $1.26 trillions worth of digital payments, which is around 23% more than in 2020.

But it is Europe that impresses the most with the digital payments growth in 2021. The transaction value topped up by around 29% to almost $1.2 trillion. The Statista experts’ prognosis is that by 2025 the European market is going to reach a $1.95 trillion value. Among all the EU states, it is the United Kingdom that takes the lead with almost $272 billion worth of digital payments, followed up by Germany with around $179 billion transaction value.

What to watch out for when sending money

1. Transfer money to people or organizations you know. 

The most common way to be trapped in a fraudulent event is to send money to someone you actually do not know. The nature of digital fraud stays not in card falsification, but the identity forgery. Thus, a violator or a hacker would try to fish for your trust, sending fake urgent emails, requests, pretending to be someone friendly or someone in great need. None of this should influence you, even if the request is indeed real, the issuer will find a way to prove identity and an acquaintance.

2. Create strong passwords. 

A strong password is the first step you can take to secure yourself from fraud and theft. Here we have some recommendations to follow in creating and also maintaining strong password protection, and also some mistakes in both.

Tips to follow:

• Make a password hard to break but easy to remember for you;
• Create a phrase replacing letters with special characters and numbers;
• Change a password every 3-6 months;
• Use one password for one portal;
• Use 12-15 characters to make a strong password;
• Use both lower and upper cases for your password;
• Include numbers in a password, and as many kinds of permitted symbols as the portal allows.

Points to avoid:

• Do not use repeatable numbers or letters, same as those which go in a row on a keyboard;
• Do not use actual words;
• Do not use words with simple replaceable, for example, a1rplan3 for the airplane;
• Do not create a password out of private data such as birth dates, names, address;
• Do not obtain a written copy of a password on the device or in physical version;
• Do not login from public computers and public wi-fi;
• Do not save a password for an autofill in the browser.

3. Cancel password autofill.

A password autofill might seem a very comfortable feature. And it is when we talk about portals that have no connection with the cardholder data. As soon as the payment is implemented on the website, autofill is better to be switched off. Any person that could have potential access to a device, would be able to log in, pretending to be you.

4. Sign-out.

The same caution is with staying logged in. For the sake of keeping your own payment data secured, log out after each session. And one more point to reflect on, all the respected financial institutions such as banks and so on would process the log out immediately after finishing the session. 

5. Use firewalls and antiviruses.

This is about the protection of your device. To avoid data breaches and threatening communications install antiviruses, implement firewalls, and provide their maintenance. Update this software frequently and do check-ups of your system. 

6. Do not transact via public networks.

Never use public internet connections and public devices to perform online payments. As both of them are not in control of yours, you don’t know in fact the level of security within these networks and on these devices.

Top 5 tips

The year 2022 will bring us more remittance providers along with more online transfer requests from all over the world. Here we have noted 5 tips to follow to assure security and avoid troubles with online money transfers.

Transact only with reputable remittance providers

When selecting a remittance provider for the online money transfer we recommend keeping something in mind. A reliable financial institution is obliged to comply with certain international standards that guarantee that this exact provider guards the cardholders’ data on the required level.

Currently, we can highlight three international standards and compliances that rule the world of online transactions and payments globally. The General Data Protection Regulation would be number one to look for if we are talking about remittance providers that deal with EU citizens. The GDPR dictates how private data is being collected, stored, shared, and used. It obliges any company or organization in the world to follow its detective if they collect, store, or transmit personal data of citizens and related people in the European Union.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is the next compliance, it regulates processing, storing, or transmitting the cardholder data internationally. PCI DSS applies to any company or organization that deals with cardholder data with no exclusion. 

At last, the Second Payment Services Directive is a lawful compliance set that monitors companies and organizations that have access to the payment data of a cardholder. The PSD2 applies to all payments on the territory of the EU and EEA.

Be mindful of phishing emails and frauds

When a remittance provider is secured and there is an assurance in the system security of the transaction, the next important step is to be aware of fraudulent attempts that might come directly to your email box.

According to Verizon’s 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 96% of phishing attacks are channeled via emails. A phishing attack is one of the fraudulent actions, and so it is completely illegal. 

By its nature, a phishing attack is a type of social engineering attack that is used to steal the cardholders’ private data. This data can include but is not limited to:

• passwords;
• login information; 
• credit card data;
• address and physical payment details;
• identification documents.

In the case of phishing, a fraudster pretends to behave as a trusted entity, organization, or even legal structure, demanding a cardholder to uncover some personal data for a fake need, or follow a malicious link, and even proceed to payment or financial reward. The result of following these instructions is data theft. To avoid the situation we advise blocking requests like this, and if there is a doubt to verify the identity very carefully.

Keep your data secure and ensure your privacy

We have already described how to create a strong password and secure enough to protect the cardholders’ data. As well as why there is a danger in processing payments through public networks or devices. But there is one more thing that can be done for keeping data secure.

When you choose a bank or a PSP, you need to look for the one which has an implemented two-factor authentication or simply 2FA. Two-factor authentication is a special electronic authentication method that requires a cardholder to present two or more layers of identity. 

2FA verification requires:

• something that a cardholder knows, such as a first pet‘s name; 
• something that a cardholder possesses like a phone to send an SMS confirmation;
• something that a cardholder is, for instance, an ID document or biometrical data.

Two-factor authentication is currently a popular login form for a lot of financial institutions, as it decreases fraud and identity theft cases.

Use encrypted and authorized sites and applications

Any remittance provider must be secured and encrypted, these are the basics of their functioning. The secured websites use Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP. It is an application-layer protocol for secure transmitting of hypermedia documents like HTML. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol was created to establish communication between web browsers and web servers. To check if the website for online money transfers obtains the Hypertext Transfer Protocol it is enough to look at the beginning of its link, where it is always indicated.

Another simple but useful thing to do to protect private data is to rely on the browser’s warnings. If the browser notifies a payment page as unsecured, better trust it and perhaps forward the payment or transaction to another provider.

Check your details, then check them again, and again

And the last tip: always check the data you input during the transaction process. Such a simple thing as manual double verification of the bank details, address, email, and others can save your money from being lost in a random account. Besides that, monitor your account for incomes and outcomes. Fraud is not always a massive money loss, sometimes it comes in a form of weird cheap but lasting subscriptions.

Maxpay’s advantages

Maxpay is a payment gateway that provides various services to merchants, such as help with merchant accounts opening, fraud protection, and chargeback prevention for businesses. Maxpay is GDPR, PCI DSS, and PSD2 compliant, it offers top security solutions for collecting payments all over the world, in multiple currencies, with established and innovative payment methods.