AlphaSys and Ezidebit combat rising fraud in the not-for-profit industry
Learn why collaboration is so critical to this partnership — and how the combination of Ezidebit’s payment integration and Merchant Trust Initiative tools have helped AlphaSys enhance their value proposition in the Australian market.
An Industry-Wide Challenge
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) published a 70% increase in reported scams in 2020, compared with the previous year. The highest individual loss in 2020 was $30,000, and the collective loss amounted to over $138,000.
Director of AlphaSys Justin Yoon said COVID-19 in particular has forced charities and not-for-profit organisations to operate smarter because the whole environment has changed completely.
“During times of economic uncertainty, you need to be able to trust your payment processes. You want to know that you've secured that donation as quickly as possible, while also trying to find new ways to de-risk payments,” Mr. Yoon said.
The Solution
AlphaSys and Ezidebit have worked together to provide a robust solution for what can be an extremely challenging subject for their clients — data and payment security.
AlphaSys is a cloud technology company tailor-made for non-profit, educational and membership organisations. AlphaSys partners with Ezidebit to offer a fully integrated payments experience within their platform.
By taking advantage of Ezidebit’s Merchant Trust Initiative, AlphaSys customers can take control of their payments security. The program has given AlphaSys the tools they need to improve security within not only their own business — but has helped them educate their clients about security and managing their own (PCI DSS) obligations.
“Partnering with Ezidebit and having access to the Merchant Trust Initiative brings credibility and authority to our security processes, and enhances AlphaSys’ value proposition to our clients,” Mr. Yoon said.
The Process
When a purchase is made, sensitive payment data can be touched by many people and systems before it passes through a complex network of banks, card schemes and payment processors. .
These processes can often lead to an increased risk of fraud and data breaches. The main goal of PCI DSS is to ensure that every time a customer’s payment information is handled, it’s protected with maximum security. For many organisations, however, monitoring and maintaining PCI DSS compliance can be complicated.
Mike French, Head of Industry Solutions at AlphaSys said they’ve been able to streamline conversations with their clients by leveraging Ezidebit’s Merchant Trust Initiative tools.
“Some clients have a team that understands PCI DSS compliance, so it’s a fairly straight-forward conversation. Others have no idea where to start, but they get direction from a Board Director that they want their organisation to be PCI DSS compliant,” Mr. French said.
“There are a lot of misunderstandings and confusion about security. The good thing about the Merchant Trust Initiative is that once we’ve taken one of our clients through the program’s compliance process, 90% of the questions are the same for the next client, and the client after that, and so forth.
"This makes the conversations we have around security and compliance with our clients a lot easier and more streamlined,” he said.
Ezidebit Partner Relationship Manager Shayna Jones agreed that it can be challenging to explain what success looks like in the context of security.
“By using the Merchant Trust Initiative tools available, our partners and their clients can dig in deep enough to see any weaknesses that might allow a breach to occur, and stop that from happening,” Mrs. Jones said.
Mr. French said having access to the Merchant Trust Initiative as part of the Ezidebit payment integration helps AlphaSys’ clients achieve a higher standard of security.
“No other payment gateway I know of is as consistent with its application of a third party security audit like Ezidebit and their Merchant Trust Initiative. It provides us with a roadmap to auditing our business security and guiding our own clients through the same process — providing peace of mind, ease of implementation and watertight security,” Mr. French said.
Our partnership with Ezidebit is about collaboration and working together on best practices. Ezidebit lets us know what they see happening in the market and gives us tips and tricks on what we can do. And we feel comfortable giving feedback to Ezidebit from our customers on how to make the product better. This collaboration is critical. With other payment providers we integrate with, it’s just a site with API documentation. Having a relationship and being able to collaborate means that the experience for our mutual clients is the best it can be.
Justin Yoon
AlphaSys
How Ezidebit supports AlphaSys
AlphaSys views Ezidebit as more than just a payments gateway. Here’s why:
Collaboration
Ezidebit regularly engages with AlphaSys to talk through how the partnership is performing and deliver data driven insights.
“[By undertaking this process] we understand trends and discover interesting insights, which gives us clarity on what we need to be ready for. Ezidebit always has an expert ready to help us.
"When we’ve got an idea, we discuss and work out how to make it happen. Our donation pages have been an area where we've had a lot of help to make sure they are secure and impenetrable. It’s not just another gateway working with a software vendor. It’s a true partnership,” Mr. Yoon said.
From Ezidebit’s perspective, that will always remain part of its partner value offering.
"We are experts in payments so our partners don't have to be. We are constantly passing on learnings and insights to strengthen our combined offering to the market," Mrs. Jones said.
“Charities are often the target of card-related fraud and Ezidebit’s Merchant Trust Initiative helps protect our clients,” Mr. Yoon said.
Reliability
Mr. Yoon said that AlphaSys’ clients need to know they have secured a donation, especially one that is made on a recurring basis, as quickly as possible. And being able to offer multiple payment methods including bank account and credit card payments is critical to capturing those donations.
“Reliable processing of these payments plays a crucial part in our partnership. For our clients, it’s about making sure the donations come in and that it’s easy managing the entire retry cycle as well. Cash is king and Ezidebit makes it much easier to manage cash flow,” Mr. Yoon said.
Communication
Mr. French and the AlphaSys team understand the challenges involved in working out the right level of communication to keep clients up-to-date.
“We appreciate the messages we receive from Ezidebit because it gives us an understanding of what's going on, so we know when something is down or going to be temporarily offline. Every other gateway is going through the same stuff, they’re just not being public about it. This level of openness helps us communicate better with our clients,” Mr. French said.
Trust
When it comes to implementing a payments solution and managing sensitive payment data, trust is essential — trust in the service and trust in the people delivering that service.
There is a robust network making up any payments relationship; the end payer, the business taking the payment, the software product (AlphaSys), the payments gateway (Ezidebit), and the banks, and card schemes.
“If there’s one weak link in the chain, fraudsters will explore this opportunity. We have to work together to provide a robust solution for what is an extremely challenging environment, and trust that each party involved is doing their part,” Mr. French explained.
About Ezidebit
With more than 20 years’ of payments expertise, Ezidebit has become a staple in the Australian and New Zealand markets. More than 27,000 businesses and over half a million consumers use Ezidebit to process their payments every day.
With Ezidebit you’re not just a number. We get to know your business and your platform intimately and offer solutions and insights to help you win in your market - collaboration is in our DNA. We are obsessed with payments so you don’t have to be.
Shayna Jones
Ezidebit
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