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Plastic fantastic [SME Advisor Middle East](SME Advisor Middle East Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) We've often argued that cash is the ultimate SME dream and have offered advice on a myriad of ways to liberate your business cash flow. In the following feature, however, we present to you a fresh perspective on managing cash flow, controlling your business spending, increasing revenues and improving cost-efficiency. Marcello Baricordi, Visa's General Manager for the UAE and Global Accounts Lead MENA, tells Rushika Bhatia about Visa's attractive SME offer… Businesses often argue that cash is king. How do you think a global payment solutions provider steps in and makes a difference? From our experience in working with small businesses around the world, we know that they have similar issues of growing their business, managing cash flow and meeting monthly expenses. Cash flow management is critical for any company to survive and electronic payments can improve cash management. Electronic payments can help improve areas such as managing payments, create efficient payment collections process, ease moving of funds and reduce administrative process. A vast majority of small businesses today accept debit and credit cards. What are top reasons you attribute to this trend? Do you have key statistics on the uptake of POS systems within the SME retail industry? While cards are the generally accepted form of payment for everyday spends, retail and hospitality, a vast majority of small businesses today, trade with non-card payments. This trend is due to the dependence on cash and the perceived convenience that cash offers. There is significant value in terms of doing away with cash and Visa has been working closely with its member banks to tap this largely non-carded segment and get them to commence card acceptance. How can global payment solutions provider – such as yourselves – help an SME in its quest for international expansion and growth? For SMEs, networks and relationships are that much more vital to their success. In 2011, the World Travel & Tourism Council released their findings in a paper, Business Travel: A Catalyst for Economic Performance, indicating that the majority of executive respondents believe business travel to be essential in increasing sales (75 per cent) and developing supplier partnerships (70 per cent). Business travellers also estimated that 50 per cent of prospects became customers when an in-person meeting took place, compared to only 31 per cent when meetings were not conducted face-to-face. This is unsurprising, as culturally, this is how business relationships are made and strengthened in this region. It is clear that small businesses need to travel to achieve their growth ambitions. As a global company with a local presence, Visa believes it is essential to make travel as safe, efficient, and relevant as possible. Creating a bespoke travel experience for SMEs can be a trigger for economic growth. Visa has worked with local and international financial institutions to create products enabling efficiency and safety. Depending on their needs, SMEs can choose from a suite of features, including cards that come with travel insurance and even cards that provide immigration services. Do you have any solutions that help ease the accounts receivables process? Accepting card-based electronic solutions offers small businesses many benefits. For instance, credit and debit cards are widely used all over the world; enable faster receipt of funds which improves cash flow, enhances working capital; creates convenience; reduces risk and processing time i.e. no hassles associated with wire transfers or letters of credit etc. A rising trend that we are seeing is being driven by innovation in the mobile space. The evolution of smartphones & tablets to be used as mobile terminals to accept cards is a convenient & cost effective way to receive payments & manage receivables. Smartphones or tablets makes card acceptance portable and therefore easy to use. What kind of data protection measures are in place today to ensure complete confidentiality of business information? Visa has developed numerous resources including best practice guides, webinars and a website dedicated to consumer and small business security with simple, cost effective, easy-to-understand steps small business owners can take to greatly improve their security. Data security is fundamental to securing payments and maintaining customer trust. The best advice for small businesses is: be proactive. Don't wait until you have had a breach or lost valuable data to take stock of your company's data security practices. Make security a priority and start by taking common sense measures to make your cyber security as strong as the padlock you put on your store's front door. Additional resources for small businesses: • Tips and Tools for Small Merchant Businesses: •Tips and Tools for E-Commerce Businesses: http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/data-security-ecommerce-small-merchant-tips.pdf What happens in case of a cyber-attack? What kind of remedial measures can businesses take? We know that hackers are opportunistic—they change tactics to find points of weakness and exploit vulnerabilities. Today's criminals look for weaknesses across a company's system—in both payment areas and non-payment areas. For example, a hacker may gain access to a company's non-payment area, then inject malware into the system to gain access to the payment area. This tactic highlights the impact that security issues outside the payment space can have on the payment side. It also reminds us that basic risk management practices such as using strong passwords and optimizing tools to detect malware are important across a company's system. Once criminals get the data, they follow one of two strategies. They use the data for fraudulent use, like the ATM cash outs. They have a strong network of criminals, and are global and geographically distributed. Alternately they sell stolen credentials to other criminals. To maintain confidence of system users, Visa and other stakeholders have made enormous investments in data security and fraud prevention. To ensure we protect Visa cardholders, we employ multiple layers of security that work together to help us manage fraud. From anti-counterfeit features, to network-based fraud detection, to data security standards to help keep sensitive information secure. At Visa, we describe our approach as a "Layered Defence." We employ multiple, interconnected strategies that work together to create a strong defence. Keeping fraud rates at all-time lows at that scale is no small feat. What we've learned and applied over the years is that there is no single approach to security – there are many. If a business accepts payment cards, it is important to have security steps in place to ensure their customers' information is safe. Their respective bank or payment services processor can help them prevent fraud. In addition there are free resources and general security tips available to learn how to keep sensitive information—beyond payment information—safe. Below are some quick tips that can help: Know the Who, What, Where of Your Sensitive Data • Make a list of the type of customer and card information you collect and store—names, addresses, identification information, payment card numbers, bank account details and social security numbers. It's not only card numbers criminals want; they're looking for all types of personal information, especially if it helps them commit identity fraud. • Ask yourself, where do you keep this information and how is it protected? • Determine who has access to this data and if they need to have access. If You Don't Need It, Don't Keep It • Once you know what information you collect and store, evaluate whether you really need to keep it. Businesses may not realize they're keeping unnecessary data until they conduct an audit. Removing and destroying sensitive data from storage makes it harder for criminals to steal it. Work with your bank or payment processor if you are unsure what data to keep or delete and ask if they have any rules governing data storage that you should be aware of. • If you've been using card numbers for purposes other than payment transactions, such as a customer loyalty programme, ask your merchant processor if you can use tokenization instead. Tokenization is a new technology that replaces card numbers with an alternate number that can't be used for fraud When You Choose Tools or Services, Make sure they're secure • The payments industry maintains lists of hardware and software providers that have been validated against industry security requirements. • Visa also maintains a list of service providers that have been validated against industry security requirements. • If you outsource your payment application and/or network installation and maintenance, have a conversation with your third-party integrator or reseller about security and ask if the payment software installed is compliant with the latest version of the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). • Isolate payment systems from other, less secure programmes, especially those connected to the Internet. For example, don't use the same computer or point of sale system to process payments and surf the Internet. • If you use a computer at your business to handle cardholder data or facilitate payment card transactions, make sure you install an anti-virus programme and update it regularly. If your business has an outward-facing Internet protocol address (these are Internet-facing entry points to your network), it also is essential to implement a firewall and conduct quarterly vulnerability scans. • Control or limit access to payment systems to only employees who need access. • Make sure you implement remote access applications securely or eliminate remote access if you don't need it so that criminals cannot infiltrate your system from the Internet. Take Advantage of Security Tools and Resources • Work with your bank or processor and ask about the anti-fraud measures, tools and services you can use to ensure criminals cannot use stolen card information at your business. • Consider using encryption or tokenization to help secure payment data and minimize its value to data thieves. • For e-commerce retailers: • We recommend that retailers verify the CVV2 code. A CVV2 is the three digit number on the signature panel that can help verify that the customer has physical possession of the card and not just the account number. • For an additional layer of security, retailers can use services such as Verified by Visa, which prompt the cardholder to enter a personal password confirming their identity. • For brick and mortar retailers: • Retailers should swipe the card and get an electronic authorization for the transaction • Retailers may also want to consider upgrading their payment terminals to accept EMV chip technology. • EMV chip technology introduces unique dynamic values for each transaction, making account data less attractive to steal. When working with a merchant (in this case an SME), do you evaluate and discuss key risks and put together a risk management template? Visa collaborates with the broader payment community on innovative data security technologies and fraud prevention strategies to keep payments safe. No entity can protect the system by itself. That's why we work to foster an environment of partnership, engagement and accountability across the industry. We work hand-in-hand with the broader payments community – from cardholders to merchants, financial institutions to service providers, regulators to law enforcement. Our collective success maintaining trust and confidence of consumers depends on our ability to work together, share information and coordinate our defences. Risk considerations would be similar, regardless of the size of a retailer. Visa has updated content on its webpages, security conferences and webinars which is targeted at merchants of all sizes. Visa provides acquirers and merchants alike an exhaustive list of information, whether it be best practices, guides, education, data security, encryption or risk tools and solutions. As a small business in the trading sector, what are the costs associated with setting up a payment solution? As mentioned above, merchant relationships are owned by acquiring banks. A small business wishing to set up a Payment Solution for its business, needs to factor in the bank charges, which are usually structured as an upfront deposit, equipment rental and transaction based fees. Exact costs differ by type of service required and acquiring bank chosen. Do you offer any customised solutions to suit an SME's individual needs? For payment solutions providers such as Visa, who have strong local ties to businesses in the region while also capable of offering global solutions and platforms, providing targeted and relevant access is the next step to helping local SMEs achieve their goals. Our commercial payment solutions – such as the Visa Business card – are designed to meet the needs of small businesses. The Visa Business card is an easy way to separate company and personal expenses, manage business and travel spending, and simplify bookkeeping. Many business commercial card programmes also offer discounts and deals, which are not normally available to personal credit card cardholders, to help businesses save on essentials. For instance, Visa Commercial Offers features a wide range of business products and services from established merchants to help cardholders achieve costs savings. These programmes include discounts on business travel and accommodation, support services such as courier and office supplies as well as other professional products and services designed for SMEs. We are committed to creating commercial products and solutions that enable entrepreneurship and SMEs to prosper – through our commercial payment solutions like the Visa Business card and Visa Commercial Offers. How do you see the benefits of company credit cards in terms of managing staff expenses and evaluating individual staff behaviour? Managing outgoings on a business card allows small businesses greater control of business spending – you can track expenses by category; issue cards to key employee; set spending limits; and better manage your company's cash flow. To further aid small businesses, Visa is introducing two new platforms: Visa IntelliLink for Small Business, which allows businesses to track and manage their expenses more efficiently, and Visa Payment Controls, which allows business owners to customise how, when and where their Visa Business Card and their employees' Visa Business cards can be used by setting rules based on merchant categories and various other criteria. Do you believe that 'cleared funds' have advantages that even cash doesn't have? Access to funds whenever and wherever you need it gives businesses more malleability to scale up, increases revenue and cost efficiency. With a Visa Business Debit Card, businesses can conveniently access their funds from their checking account. On the other hand, Visa Business Credit Card allows businesses to take control of purchasing convenience with generous available credit. What's better is that our commercial cards can be used anywhere that accepts Visa – that's tens of millions of merchants worldwide. (c) 2014 Corporate Publishing International. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |