Secure Online Payments in AU/NZ Accommodation: Why 3D Secure (3DS) Matters
Whether you manage a holiday park, motel, boutique hotel, or multi-site accommodation business, taking secure online payments is essential. At Seekom, we’ve integrated 3D Secure (3DS) into our payment system to help protect you and your guests from fraud.
What is 3D Secure (3DS)?
3D Secure is an additional layer of authentication for online card payments. It helps confirm that the person making the payment is the actual cardholder.
When a guest books online, their bank might ask them to verify the transaction - usually by sending a one-time code via text message (SMS) or prompting them to approve the payment in their banking app. It only takes a few seconds and adds a strong layer of fraud protection.
Why is This Important for Australasia Accommodation Providers?
The accommodation sector relies heavily on online bookings - and with that comes an increased risk of fraud. Whether your guests are local or international, 3DS helps reduce this risk.
Here’s how 3DS supports your business:
Reduces fraudulent transactions and chargebacks
Improves guest confidence in your payment system
Helps future-proof your operation as global payment standards evolve
What Will Guests Experience?
When paying online, guests may:
Get a text message with a one-time code
Be prompted to approve the transaction in their banking app
Use Face ID, fingerprint, or a bank-issued password for confirmation
This step may not happen every time - it depends on the guest’s bank and card provider.
Built-In Security with SeekomPay:
We’ve built 3DS requests directly into our SeekomPay payment gateway, ensuring secure transactions without requiring complex setups. While the system works seamlessly out of the box, you also have the flexibility to configure the 3DS challenge indicator to suit your business needs.
A step-by-step user guide is available to help you adjust these settings, allowing you to tailor the security preferences for your property. This ensures that your payment process remains secure and optimised for a smooth guest experience.
Safe Payments Mean Secure Bookings
With 3D Secure, you're protecting your revenue, your guests, and your reputation. Seekom ensures that your payment gateway is not only secure but also future-proofed for evolving industry standards.
Ready to Enhance Your Payment Security?
Contact us today to learn more about SeekomPay and how 3D Secure (3DS) can help protect your business.
Note: Something you may not know is that we also build websites. Many of our customers have Seekom-built, self managed websites with full control, backed by our expert setup and support. If you’re interested in finding out more, please get in touch.
Smarts to help you operate more effectively and efficiently. From guides of our systems and integrations to tips and tricks you can use every day - we've got you covered.
Seekom takes security seriously: From phishing simulations to IT health checks
Is online security front of mind in your accommodation business? The consequences of a security breach can be major and include financial loss, reputational damage and losing the trust of your customers.
At Seekom, we believe security is paramount and have recently taken some extra steps to keep both our systems and our customers safe in the face of cyber threats. Measures include regular security scans by external experts to maintain compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements and random phishing exercises with staff to ensure they don't fall prey to someone wanting to hack our systems.
To make doubly sure that our online defences are watertight we also engage independent experts to run IT Security Health Checks of our systems and web services each quarter.
External security scans ensure PCI compliance
Seekom conducts regular external security scans to check our compliance with PCI standards, which provide a strong framework for protecting customer payment data and are critical for any business that handles credit card information
Our security scans, performed by independent external providers, assess our entire system to identify potential vulnerabilities and make sure we meet the strict security requirements established by the PCI Security Standards Council. These scans involve testing firewalls, encryption protocols, access controls, and ensuring sensitive data is stored and transmitted securely, among other things.
Random phishing exercises raise awareness of cyber attacks
One of the most common methods hackers use to infiltrate businesses is known as ‘phishing’, where cyber hackers attempt to deceive employees into revealing sensitive information, such as passwords or financial data, by posing as legitimate entities.
The weakest link in a security chain can often be human error, which is why we’ve incorporated random phishing exercises into our security protocol. These exercises simulate real phishing attempts, testing our staff’s ability to recognise and respond to suspicious emails or messages. By doing this we create a security-conscious working environment where our team remains vigilant and on alert to detect fraudulent behaviour.
Quarterly IT Security Health Checks safeguard our systems
Seekom undertakes quarterly external IT Security Health Checks of our systems and web services. These health checks provide a comprehensive evaluation of our IT infrastructure and identify any potential vulnerabilities. By conducting regular checks we proactively ensure our systems remain robust and resilient in the face of new and emerging threats and maintain a strong line of defence.
At Seekom we’re proud to be ‘walking the talk’ when it comes to online security. We do our utmost to make sure we’ve got your back with solid cyber defences so you can have peace of mind as you go about your business.
The measures outlined above are recent additions to our security efforts, but they aren’t the only steps we take. Other steps to safer online security that we’ve blogged about include introducing stronger passwords and multi-factor authentication, as well as implementing security updates in many of the version upgrades we release for our Seekom system. We’ve also published advice about how to stay scam savvy – it’s worth a read if you want to keep your online guard up.
Smarts to help you operate more effectively and efficiently. From guides of our systems and integrations to tips and tricks you can use every day - we've got you covered.
Manage guest payments better with all new SeekomPay
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of SeekomPay – our brand-new payment solution designed to save you money and provide a seamless experience for guests booking accommodation at your property.
To celebrate the launch, we’re offering a special deal that will see sign-up fees waived for any Seekom users who sign up for SeekomPay before the end of September 2023. Created for users of our Seekom iBex property management software, SeekomPay provides a secure and fully integrated gateway for customer payments and lower rates than many third-party options.
Provide an exceptional payments solution for guests, save time and money, and manage all your guests’ bookings end-to-end within the Seekom ecosystem. What’s not to like?
Key benefits
Improve cash flow: Customer payments are automatically deposited into your nominated bank account the next business day
Flexible ways to pay: You can request credit card details via SMS or email for phone bookings, keeping payments secure and simplifying the payment process.
Secure and compliant: You’ll benefit from full PCI compliance, safe credit card storage and 3DSecure 2 technology embedded into SeekomPay payment links, keeping you and your guests safe from potential security breaches.
Transparency and trust: Your SeekomPay merchant portal provides you with complete transparency over your online transactions and detailed reporting, acting as a source of truth for your business.
Save time: Your SeekomPay merchant portal allows you to track and reconcile all transactions with ease and automate repetitive tasks.
Save money: Our competitive rates will add to your bottom line.
Smarts to help you operate more effectively and efficiently. From guides of our systems and integrations to tips and tricks you can use every day – we’ve got you covered.
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