MasterCard Poised to Make Fraud Management Easier for Small Businesses
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have a lot of concerns unique to their own way of life.
One concern they share in common with many of their customers is security, and MasterCard is working with the SMB market to bring better security their way by virtue of greater fraud protection tools.
The numbers, according to recent reports, are stark at best: 86 percent of SMBs had at least some level of concern about data security, and 67 percent don’t really understand what “data security” is even comprised of, let alone how to achieve it.
That’s a disaster in the making, and one that can be solved with some comparatively simple countermeasures. To that end, MasterCard brought out its Simplify Controls system, geared toward allowing SMB users to not only monitor eCommerce transactions, but also control and even prevent same, all in real time.
Businesses have a clear interest in separating the fraudulent transactions from the actual ones, and Simplify Controls makes that process a lot simpler.
SMBs aren’t completely out of the loop in terms of payment technology and security; the comfort level of many merchants using a variety of tools is actually fairly high, including 55 percent feeling comfortable with mobile device or watch payments.
Fifty-three percent were comfortable with digital wallets, and 45 percent like the concept of biometric authentication just fine. But one thing that makes merchants uncomfortable is a lack of control, and Simplify Controls returns control to the merchant.
While MasterCard is eager to take some of the struggles off merchants’ plate—the solution is Payment Card Industry (PCI)-certified, which means the burden of meeting PCI requirements has fallen—the merchants don’t really want all the struggles gone.
That’s a good sign; businesses are eager to protect customers, but unsure of how to go about it. MasterCard steps in to provide some of that surety, and the end result is a better process all around.
This represents good news for customers and for businesses all around; the safer it is to do business with a company, the more likely it is customers will return to do business there.
That means more repeat customers and a better, more stable cash flow. It’s not strictly as simple as bringing Simplify Controls into place, but it will likely help, and make businesses better able to fend off fraud efforts.