Undoubtedly, the health crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic forced hundreds of Colombians to migrate to the virtual world to make their purchases and payments.
Although there currently are various platforms to perform all types of financial and payment transactions, it becomes urgent that new users feel safe when facing this new normal.
Bogotá, February 2021. Electronic commerce was the protagonist during the current global health crisis. As a consequence, physical channels closed their operations and pushed hundreds of Colombians to turn towards digital channels, thus providing, an acceleration of virtual reality.
According to data presented by the Colombian Chamber of Electronic Commerce on ecommerce behavior and its perspectives for 2021, published in October of last year, the operations carried out by this channel grew considerably. Although the reopening of the commercial sector caused a good number of people to return to a physical modality, this transformation has not been stopped, as indicated by the report, the pandemic has generated a structural change that caused an exponential increase in the number of users operating in the digital space all over the country.
Feeling secure when making transactions – keeping in mind that 2020 was also a year in which cybercrimes increased – is essential for new users. That is why it is key that companies promote a sense of trust and that, above all, offer certain guarantees to their target audiences.
This security in the payment process is part of Evertec’s offer to digital consumers. Evertec, through its digital payments platform, Placetopay, works together with their clients to make their business payments, including merchants or entities that receive these transactions, a safe and secure experience for their end users.
What is Placetopay?
Placetopay is a well-recognized payment processing platform that manages digital transactions thru different channels, with functionalities that adapt to each customer’s needs. “What we want with Placetopay is that if a business wants to incorporate the service, they will feel confident that they will have a complete set of data and analyses that will allow them to make strategic decisions based on real information from their business; having different security tools supporting each of the operations within the platform, ” says Ricardo García Molina, General Director of Evertec in Medellín.
Evertec, one of the companies that has led the payment transaction processing market for several years in Colombia, has expanded its presence in payments and financial technology in Latin America. In addition, it strengthened its position by providing an efficient platform for the processing of electronic payments, complementary with the processing and fraud prevention products.
“Aware of how important payments are for virtual channels, we have been focused on strengthening our digital payment solutions to make the experience simpler and more secure. Placetopay perfectly complements our existing solutions and will allow us to offer an even more integrated experience to our businesses and customers,” says Rodrigo del Castillo, Executive Vice President of Payment Services for Latin America.
Faced with the threat of electronic fraud prevalent among new virtual consumers, below are some guidelines to consider:
- Eliminate or omit emails or suspected text messages from unknown recipients.
- Do not respond to emails with personal or financial information.
- Do not open email files that you have not been waiting for. Particularly those emails with the issue or subject of Covid19.
- Do not open links from sites that invite you to click with slogans such as reimbursements, payments, or alerts that your account has been blocked. If you open the link, you should not enter your passwords, or provide personal or financial information. If you have doubts, call the business, financial institution or agency, and check email authenticity.
- Keep updated the antivirus and operating system (Windows, Android, iPhone IOS, etc.) of the device you use to access the Internet.
- Verify that pages have the security lock icon before typing personal data in the forms to perform transactions.
- If you receive a phone call under the same pretexts of reimbursements, payments, prizes, or money in general, do not provide passwords or personal or financial information.
- If you have any doubt about an electronic transaction, abstain from continuing with the purchase and request support from the business you are trying to access.
In order to accompany our users, on our website you can find content, more detailed information on how our platform works, how we guarantee the security of your transactions and how to minimize the risks when making online purchases.
About Evertec: Evertec (NYSE: EVTC), is a leading transaction processing services company in Latin America, provides services for acquiring transactions in stores, paying processing and business processes management. Manage a system of electronic payment networks that processes more than 2 billion transactions annually and provides an integral set of banking solutions processing services, cash processing and technology outsourcing. In addition, Evertec has and operates the ATH® network, one of the main debit networks with a personal identification number in Latin America. Headquartered in Puerto Rico, it offers services in 26 countries in Latin America. For more information, visit www.evertecinc.com.