How Simplypay Makes Online Payments Securely

Protective Protocols that Rival the Bank

For operators of Canadian SMEs and startups doing business online, one of the biggest concerns is cyber-security — and with good reason. At the start of 2020, cyber-attacks on financial services increased by 238%, so their concern is not without validation.

It is certainly no secret that security and convenience have a history of standing at odds. With the emergence of the fintech industry and services such as Simplypay offering such convenient payments, it can seem almost too good to be true. While due diligence is incredibly important, the concrete truth is that convenience and security can successfully coexist.

In fact, Simplypay, while remaining affordable and convenient, offers bank-level security on all payments and data. In this article, we will explain in detail some of these features along with the roles that governing organizations in charge of regulating the fintech industry play in keeping your payments secure.

How Does Simplypay Protect My Business’ Payment Data?

What data could be more sensitive to an SME or Startup than their financial information? To witness even the largest corporations be victimized by cyberattacks can certainly make a small business owner or operator uneasy. If a gigantic resource industry corporation like Colonial pipelines can be shut down by a cyberattack, what chance does a small business have?

The stark truth is that on your own it is much more difficult to protect your data — but your business doesn’t need to stand alone. In fact, even we at Simplypay don’t stand alone in protecting your business’ data and finances from cyberfraud. Simplypay reports to and is regulated by an organization called FINTRAC.

What is FINTRAC?

The Financial Transaction Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) is a government organization with several important mandates. FINTRAC was created in the year 2000 to monitor and prevent money laundering as well as terrorist financing. They are in essence, Canada’s financial CIA.

Of course, technology has come a long way in the past 20+ years. As fintech evolved into a viable industry, monitoring and protecting the financial transaction data of these services fell under the jurisdiction of FINTRAC.

This organization also operates in tandem with an international group of financial intelligence units known as the Egmont Group. Not only do you have our homeland financial security unit on your team — you have an entire network comprised of the most sophisticated financial intelligence teams in the world monitoring your business’ data and keeping it safe.

We proactively work with FINTRAC to keep our clients’ information safe from cyber threats, but we do a lot more than just that. Our security is well-fortified with multiple layers of protection. While we work under and with the umbrella of FINTRAC at a macro-level — we are doing our part right down to the letter: literally.

What is AES 256-bit Encryption?

Let’s go back to the origin of the computer. One of the very first predecessors — Turing’s “Bombe” machine, was designed to crack encrypted codes during the second world war. Seventy years later, computers have come a long way — and so has their ability to encrypt data. Simplypay makes full use of this ability with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-256 encryption protocols. Here is how it works:

All of the bank’s information is encoded using a seemingly random string of characters — 256 characters to be exact. To put this into perspective remember that the alphabet is comprised of only 26 characters and is used by around 100 entire languages.

With 256 characters, the number of possible combinations is equal to 1.1 x 10 to the 77th power. This system is approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US for encoding top secret information, making it the perfect tool for keeping both the banks’ and your business’ data safe.

A Token of Your Security

Finally, all of our clients’ information is kept secure using a security token. Raw data is never transferred anywhere. This is a common method of protecting data — if you’ve ever had to sign in to a service using your email — your information is passed back and forth between the site and your email provider using a security token rather than an actual password.

At Simplypay, our service could only ever be top-notch if our security was impregnable. We have your business’ security at the forefront of our minds, and technological capabilities. Do you know somebody who runs a business? Help them to keep their payments secure — Share this article!