The payments industry has completely changed. Gone are the days when you had to write out a cheque or scramble for the right amount of cash to pay for something.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of digital tech that has provided consumers with faster and more convenient ways to pay. Nowadays, it’s not that uncommon to ditch your wallet altogether thanks to the number of mobile payment solutions available.
With the evolution of payments, there has also been an increase in malicious attempts by those trying to take advantage of the payment process to fraudulently benefit themselves. According to a global report published by Transunion, digital fraud attempts in financial services increased by a staggering 187% in the first four months of 2021, when compared to the same period last year.
To counter this, and to ensure that consumers and merchants are protected, banks and fintech companies like Ozow are continually implementing system security, data integrity, and business continuity processes to ensure that you are protected against cyber and data risks.
Using Ozow is safe
While no environment is completely risk-free, there are multiple security layers in place from Ozow and the banks to protect consumers.
When you make a payment with Ozow, you’ll be asked to log into your bank account through our portal to select the bank account that you want to pay from. We encrypt your online banking credentials and pass these directly to the bank to ensure that no one can see this information.
A key step in the process is Two-Factor Authentication (“2FA”). This means that to authorise any payment, your bank will communicate directly with you to confirm that it is legitimate. This is an essential step of the process, sent outside of Ozow by your bank for you to authorise on your banking app, over USSD, or in the form of a one-time pin.
Our payments solutions are secure
Our systems are built using the latest technology and comply with the highest international safety and security standards. These are also fully compliant with GDPR and POPIA regulations.
All of your data is encrypted end-to-end to ensure that no one can fraudulently use this information.
We’re licensed as a Systems Operator and a Third-Party Payments Provider with the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA). We also abide by PCI-DSS Level 1 processes and we’re also PCI-certified, even though we don’t process credit cards.
How can you protect yourself?
Like anything, it is important that consumers only share their information with trusted service providers like Ozow, which are recognised by the regulators as third-party payment solutions providers and are compliant with all international security standards.
One way that you can check if a website is secure is the URL (which would include “https”). It should also have an SSL certificate to indicate that all data is encrypted.
