By their very nature, hotels carry a significant amount of sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII), which is any data that can be used to identify an individual and deanonymize information that was originally anonymous. In hospitality, this can include a guest’s name, email, phone number, home address, date of birth, payment details, passport information and more. In the security space, these key pieces of information are known as “crown jewels,” and a lack of security and compliance measures surrounding them can put vendors at risk of fines and chargebacks, while making guests vulnerable to fraud and mismanaged data.
Historically, hotels store sensitive data such as card information on machines with zero Payment Card Industry (PCI) security measures, or leave it sitting in a filing cabinet or portfolio. While many hotels are aware that they lack in compliance measures, they continue to stick to the status quo as the industry relies on similar legacy systems across the board. A significant risk lies in credit card authorization forms, which are emailed, printed and scanned with little to no oversight from a security perspective, and carry guests’ most sensitive information.
Secure Payment Links
In this era of risky hotel transactions and frustrated hotel guests and admins, Selfbook has launched a solution to address rampant industry payment issues: Selfbook Payment Links. This new product brings hotels everything they need to create unlimited customizable Payment Links for any charge and share with recipients across channels at no additional cost, offering a modern, frictionless and completely secure experience to their guests.
“Payment Links are designed to offer a payment experience that reinvents a formerly tedious and fraud-prone process. With this industry-defining new product, hotels can extend our modern payment offering to guests for any charge, at any time for a truly secure experience from end to end,” says Khalid Meniri, Co-Founder and CEO of Selfbook.
With Payment Links, guest card data, which is also known as Primary Account Number or PAN data, is never shared directly with the hotel, ensuring it is protected from security breaches and fraud. Payment Links also put an end to the security risks that have long been associated with credit card authorization forms. These PCI compliant links ensure that hotels never directly handle card data and that every transaction is secure and encrypted from end to end.
Enhanced Security Through PCI Compliance and Digital Wallets
Upon receiving Payment Links, guests have the opportunity to select their preferred modern payment method, including security-first digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. With digital wallets, the use of biometric authentication reduces the risk of fraudulent transactions, which can lead to fewer chargebacks. Tokenization ensures that customers’ actual card details are not shared with the merchant, protecting their financial information.
“Payment Links offer a truly PCI compliant experience and ensure that guest card data is never revealed, helping our hotel partners fight chargebacks,” says Jeff Geiger, Senior Director of Security at Selfbook. “With Payment Links, hotels also receive funds within 48 hours of transactions. On the guest end, digital wallets provide a fully frictionless, one-step experience – altogether, this product ensures a hassle-free and secure payment process for all.”
By streamlining and automating the payment collection process, Payment Links ensure that payment processing is simple, efficient, and risk-free, with hotels directly handling credit card data. Not only are outdated and high-risk credit card authorization forms no longer needed, but the point of sale footprint, where cards are manually handled on-property, can also be eliminated from the equation.
Following credit card authorization forms, these keyed transactions, which involve manually entering card details into a terminal, are the least secure method of charging. This is due to the fact that it is often not the cardholder processing the payment, but hotel staff, making it difficult to fight against chargebacks.
Chargeback Fighting Capabilities
Payment Links are backed by Stripe, a world-class payment service provider (PSP) which offers abundant data insights into each transaction. As a consequence, several items make Payment Links unique for fighting chargebacks. Unlike credit card authorizations, hotels never see card information with Selfbook Payment Links. This ensures the entire process, from collecting the card information to processing the charge is fully PCI compliant.
Thanks to Stripe, Selfbook has substantial backing to prevent fraudulent charges of all types – Stripe will not allow a transaction to go through if it is flagged as potential fraud, and they leverage substantial machine learning algorithms to access a transaction’s risk level. In some instances, when 3D Secure is triggered (a form of 2 factor-authentication used by some EU cards), or Apple Pay is used, Selfbook has uncontested evidence to help fight chargebacks as the user has shown high intent and sometimes used biometric methods to pay.
In addition to Stripe, Selfbook partners with a number of the world’s best financial services and fintech companies including Adyen and Worldline, as well as Selfbook investors Amex and Affirm.
A Simplified Security Experience
“With Station and Payment Links, hotels can bill and re-bill guests, all within a cloud system that we maintain, taking a lot of the burden off of hotels, says Geiger. “With Payment Links, we handle the payment process without the hotel needing to touch a credit card.”
Payment Links enable hotels to ensure a simple, secure, and PCI compliant payment experience for their guests. Without transmitting guest information through fraud-prone channels, hotels can make sure they never put crown jewel data at risk, enhancing guest trust and reducing chargebacks and fraud.
Getting Started with Payment Links
Any hotel can instantly modernize their payment experience and start creating, sharing and tracking unlimited secure Payment Links for all charge types, at no fee. This turnkey product is instantly ready to use for all hotel types, and enables PCI compliant and 3D Secure transactions for credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Buy Now, Pay Later payments.
To learn more about Payment Links and start sharing them instantly, schedule a demo with the Selfbook team today.