A recent article that ran in Information/Age asked tech experts for their cyber security predictions for 2020.

The PCI Security Standards Council recently published a piece on its website that deals specifically with the enhanced risks faced by restauranteurs in particular and small businesses in general during the holiday season.

On November 14, 2019, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization Of Canada (IIROC) announced amendments to their Dealer Member Rules that require that all investment dealers that are subject to their regulations are now obligated to report all cybersecurity incidents to IIROC within three (3) days of its discovery.

On July 29, 2019 Capital One confirmed that they were recently the victims of one of the largest thefts of banking information ever.

If your business accepts credit card payments by phone you are already aware of the time and effort it requires on the part of your staff to answer those phone calls and to manually reconcile your credit card payments with your accounting and other business systems.

A massive data breach recently was discovered at Desjardins, one of the largest federations of credit unions in North America. Information related to names, addresses, birth dates, social insurance numbers, email addresses and information about transaction habits of 2.7 million group members and 173,000 business customers were compromised.

Businesses may have various reasons for analyzing both customer preferences and their effectiveness when it comes to their choice of bill payment channel, but first and foremost they want to know how they can use this information to help them get paid as fast as possible.

Despite the best efforts of businesses to beef up their internet security, hacks, data breaches and cyber-attacks continue to be a serious threat to their customers’ sensitive and confidential information, particularly their credit card data.

What are the implications of this and what does it mean for businesses? Given the rapid growth in the acceptance of this option when it’s offered, it strongly suggests that customers want service providers to adopt communication channels that are convenient to them and make the process of bill paying easier and more fluid.

After a months-long study, Datatel can now demonstrate without a doubt that IVR Payment (Pay-By-Phone) delivers substantial cost reduction to small and medium size businesses that are currently relying on employees to handle calls from customers wishing to pay their bills over the telephone.