As banks close their branches by the bucketload and new generations of young people are glued to their mobile phones, financial companies that can provide value and convenience when facilitating online payments are eager to capitalise on the opportunity at hand.
Until the dawn of the internet, payments revolved around cash, cheques and wire transfers; it then pivoted to digital banking around the mid-2000s. However, this latest switch to mobile payments has quickly become the number one route people use to deposit their money online.
E-wallets and prepayment cards
Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill and Paysafecard are just some of the prominent names in this area of finance. Analysts believe they’ve become popular due to their reliability and financial flexibility. If you use any of these options, you’re one step removed from your bank account, providing you with further security online.
For example, if you use Paysafecard, you deposit your funds into your Paysafe account, and you’re then given a code you can use, which is the same value as the deposit. This is hugely beneficial in many growing areas, such as digital casino gaming. Despite their size and overall security, casinos are a target for cybercriminals looking to harvest sensitive financial and personal data. Casinos with Paysafecard deposit options alleviate some of this concern, as they do not hold your banking information on their servers; it’s a code that becomes invalid immediately after the deposit is made.
Again, we must reiterate that many digital casinos use the highest level of encryption and spend millions of pounds on their security and firewall, and breaches are incredibly rare. Still, it should help you rest easier knowing that you’re adding another level of security to your information when you access a casino platform.
Good financial hygiene
Financial hygiene is more commonly used to describe how businesses manage their cash flow – but it applies to us as individuals, too. Good financial hygiene takes many forms, such as budgeting properly, staying within your financial means, not using easily guessable passwords on your financial accounts and performing due diligence about a website or company before you provide them with your banking details.
In the digital age, researching financial companies and how they work should be something you do every time you sign up. Companies like PayPal and Apple Pay have a considerable market presence and a titan of an organization supporting them, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect to find out the basics about how they work and the types of techniques fraudsters use to try and get you to provide information.
Unfortunately, some hackers and fraudsters have used PayPal in the past to conduct elaborate schemes and have found success. So, ensuring that you keep email passwords just as secure and challenging to guess as you do with your bank account details is just as important when practising good financial hygiene.
Company track record
Whether you use a traditional financial institution like a bank or a fintech giant such as PayPal, you want to be sure that the company has a proven track record in security and fraud prevention. While PayPal may have been targeted by fraudsters in the past, the company has a stellar track record, especially given the number of transactions it handles per day.
As a deposit option, there’s a reason hundreds of millions of people use it. It’s considered so reliable because it has the same levels of protection and security as a traditional bank. You can raise a fraud concern with its support team; they can monitor transactions, and it’s now even issuing debit cards like banks. Although there has been an increase in some fees for UK customers sending money to EU countries, millions of people still use it in the UK.
Two-factor authentication (2FA)
All financial companies recommend setting up 2FA as it adds yet another dimension of protection. If you have 2FA set up, you’re sent a code to your trusted email or phone number every time you deposit online. While some may feel that this is an unnecessary step, it provides more security when transacting online.
Even if a hacker has access to your password, they would also need access to your trusted email or phone number to extract funds from your account. This applies to your bank account, PayPal, other e-wallets or even cryptocurrency exchanges. It’s a good practice to get into. Although there has been a sharp rise in the number of people using biometric security, if you ensure that you put the right stopgaps in place, it will be highly challenging for anybody to access your financial data.
It means that even if somebody accesses your PayPal or bank account, you’ll receive a text message or email to confirm a transaction. If you don’t recognise it, you can stop the transaction before the money leaves your account, and flag it with the appropriate authority. It’s been a game-changer in preventing fraud, and although criminals will always try to be as creative as possible, 2FA is a fantastic preventative piece of technology.
As you’ve probably gathered from today’s piece, the onus is on the individual as much as the company you’re using. While there might be instances of a company failing to keep data safe, if you implement the measures we’ve discussed today, such as strong passwords, 2FA, registering trusted devices and using biometric facial recognition, you’re building a solid foundation and wall that helps protect your financial data and means you have many deposit options available.
Any safety around your financial information and deposit starts with you. E-wallets are quickly becoming the primary way we make online purchases, and even smaller companies in this industry, such as Neteller and Skrill, are handling more transactions globally than some banks do in the UK.
As long as you stay on top of your financial hygiene and the company is playing their part as well, you should have no issues with your deposit options, regardless of what you choose.