Research Analysis South Africa

Latest MasterCard Online survey indicates security is paramount

Figures in the annual MasterCard online shopping survey revealed that 90% of respondents indicated that secure payment facilities and convenient payment methods were the most important considerations when making an online purchase.

Nearly half of respondents said that their favourite online store is Kalahari.com followed by Groupon, both PayU customers.

Another highlight of the survey is that 91% of South Africans who shop online are highly satisfied with their overall experience, a 4% increase from the 87% who said the same thing in the 2012 survey.

"This bodes well for SMEs entering the online market, as an increase in happy online users will result in growth in ecommerce, which will not just benefit the larger online stores, but ultimately spill over into smaller e-commerce sites as well," comments PayU CEO, Mark Chirnside. "It is a trend that we've already identified and which we as a company cater for in the form of PayU EasyMerchant, a product which provides SMEs with an easy way of integrating an ecommerce facility into their site."

In the past year, PayU has seen a steep increase in smaller companies entering the e-commerce sphere.

"As a payment gateway it is in our best interest to make sure the positive sentiment towards online shopping continues to grow and we are doing that by providing exactly what local online shoppers want: safe and convenient online payments."

PayU, a Naspers-owned online payment service provider, was one of the first payment gateways in the country to be PCI DSS certified, complying with Level 1 certification. The PCI DSS is a set of comprehensive safety requirements that payment gateways need to comply with to ensure that all cardholder data is always stored, processed and transmitted securely. As a payment service provider that enables businesses to accept debit and credit card payments online, compliance with data security best practices is of the utmost importance for the company.

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