Most likely you have asked yourself, is it safe to provide your personal and card information when making online payments? If we take the necessary security measures, the answer is yes. Of course, it depends on each participant in the payment process. Consumers should be careful and make sure to buy from verified retailers. Likewise, these retailers must have a reliable payment provider that allows their customers to pay securely with different payment methods. On the other hand, the institution that issues a card or any other means of payment, as we do at Blackcatcard, must establish security protocols that guarantee that the consumer's data and funds are and will remain safe. With this objective in mind, we offer our clients storage of their money with a banking level of security, including 3-D Secure protocol. What does this mean and why is it relevant? We will explain it to you in this article so that you have full trust and peace of mind when making purchases using your Blackcatcard cards.

To begin with, it is important to emphasize that all the funds you deposit in your IBAN account at Blackcatcard are totally safe. Blackcatcard uses bank-level security measures, among which 3-D Secure is one of the most important. This is a security protocol that establishes an additional step in order to make safer online payments. By activating 3-D Secure, every time a consumer makes an online transaction with a payment card he or she must confirm their transaction through the app. Due to this factor, scammers do not have access to the authorization of the transaction - it can only be done by the user of the app.

In this era of financial and information technologies, e-commerce sales are becoming increasingly common. Not only have retailers found in online sales a way to promote their products and strengthen their business, but also consumers have found in them greater convenience, greater variety, and ease of comparing products. If we look at the figures,  we will find that in 2014 e-commerce sales made around the world were valued at USD 1,336 billion, according to Statista*. In 2022 that figure was 5,717 billion; in 2023 it is estimated to reach 6,310 billion, almost 5 times more than in 2014. In fact, according to forecasts, 20.8% of purchases are expected to be made online by 2023**.

This positive outlook of exponential growth, in addition to reflecting a tendency of consumers to make more and more purchases online, is a fact that many scammers, and hackers, among others, take advantage of to deceive buyers, and steal their data and their money.

There are many methods used by criminals to defraud and steal from a person. One of the most commonly used strategies is Phishing, which consists of deceiving someone, impersonating the identity of another person or recognized company, to gain their trust and manipulate them into performing certain actions such as revealing personal or payment information or opening links to pages they create to steal private and relevant personal information, such as usernames and passwords.

You may also have heard of hacking, a method used by computer criminals to breach the security of a website, servers, networks, computers, or any other device to steal information or generate a virus. These and many other forms of theft using computer tools are evolving and putting consumers' funds at risk on a daily basis. Therefore, we are increasingly raising  our security standards and always advise our clients in order to prevent these types of scams.

From Blackcatcard we call on our users to take into account the following recommendations to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of fraud. First of all, we recommend activating 3D security for all Blackcatcard cards. Additionally, we advise you to have additional cards that you can request on our digital platforms, to which you can set a limit. If you want to make a purchase on an unfamiliar website or are suspicious of a website, you can use an additional card, which can be blocked immediately if you became a victim of fraud, without putting all the funds in your account at risk.

However, users also have a significant responsibility not to fall into the trap of scammers. So remember!

• never share personal and financial information, user names, card security codes or account passwords;
• do not open suspicious and unusual text messages or links;
• make sure that the page you are on has the correct domain of an entity or retailer and has the secure certificate in the address bar (i.e., the s - https);
• strengthen your passwords with combinations of numbers, letters, uppercase and lowercase symbols;
• buy or pay only from trusted sites with recognized payment methods.

By doing so, you help us keep your money safe, improve your online shopping experience and prevent any type of scam. Of course, one of our goals will continue to be to offer you the best security standards and to improve them every day.

*https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-e-commerce-sales/

**https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/ecommerce-statistics/