As a small business owner, you likely love dealing in cash. It’s fast, it’s easy to manage, and it comes uncoupled with the ugly fees of credit and debit card payment processing. But in 2018, cash is no longer a large topic of conversation when it comes to how small business owners are getting paid.

Cash No Longer King

In 2016, Gallup reported that far fewer Americans are using cash than five years prior. Actually, only 10% of Americans reported using cash for all their purchases, down from 19% in 2011. That number will only continue to decrease.

So while you may prefer cash, consumers prefer it less and less. That means you need to be prepared to use advanced payment processing techniques, and keep up with the latest trends in payment processing.

Mobile Processing Pressures

We’ve mentioned before that by 2020, in-store mobile payments are expected to reach a whopping $503 billion spend.

Mobile payment processing examples:
  • Digital Wallets: Embedded or aftermarket apps that lives on consumers’ mobile devices, even smart watches
  • Point of Sale (POS) Technology: The technology merchants and small businesses use to accept payment from consumers, like smartphones or tablets
  • Peer-to-peer Payment Transfers: Apps like PayPal, Zelle or Venmo

Many small businesses have yet to adopt a mobile payment processing solution. But consumers are adopting them at wildly fast rates. So if you want to cater to consumer expectations, it’s time to get on the mobile payment processing bandwagon. (Thryv could help you do just that, at some of the lowest rates in the industry.)

Chipped Cards, Chipped Cards Everywhere

If you’re like me, you’ve had at least one impatient moment at a register trying to check out with the newer, slower, slightly more complex, chipped card reader technology. Some say consumer annoyance with chipped cards is actually a leading factor as to why mobile wallets are on the rise. Regardless, chances are at least one, if not all, of your personal debit and credit cards now have microchips in them.

Chipped cards are embedded with microprocessors, or chips, which help businesses’ point-of-sale machines validate the card belongs to the individual trying to use it. Smart chips aren’t exactly new, but they’re certainly gaining popularity. In fact, over 2.9 million merchant locations, including small businesses, now accept chipped cards for payment processing. That’s around 63% of U.S. storefronts.

The credit card industry refers to smart chip technology as the EMV standard (Europay, Mastercard, Visa). With wider implementation, these chips will make credit card duplication a lot, lot harder and will ultimately reduce fraud.

At the end of last year, merchants who had implemented smart chip card technology experienced a 76% drop in fraud compared to two years prior.

Rising Security Concerns

Speaking of fraud, even chipped cards can’t save the payment processing world from crooks. While chipped cards are doing their part to reduce credit card fraud in person, online payment processing still has its risks.

Think you’re willing to accept those risks if it means getting paid? Think again. The average cost of a security breach for a small business exceeds $20,000.

So if you process payments online, you’ll want to protect your small business (and your customers) from these growing online payment processing security concerns.

One of the best ways to do that is by choosing a PCI-compliant payment processor. (PCI refers to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.) According to the PCI standard, your business must (among other requirements):

  • Never store the magnetic track data from any card, in any format, in any way, ever.
  • Encrypt any electronic storage of full credit and debit card numbers.
  • Install firewalls on your computers and network.
  • Store any paper document containing a full credit card number in a secure location (locked file drawer/safe).

Put most simply, if your small business accepts credit and debit card payments, it’s on you to securely store, process and transmit any cardholder data that comes your way. Since we know how important security is to your business, Thryv partners with industry-recognized PayPal to make credit card processing easy and secure. Unlike other payment processors, we also won’t charge you extra for online, phone or other card-not-present (CNP) transactions.