Visa, a world's leader in digital payments, partnered with ExxonMobil to launch Visa's Security Week campaign in Egypt on 9 August, which aims to promote safe digital payment practices amongst Egyptian consumers, and provide tips to protect cardholders against payment-related frauds. For the first time in Egypt, Visa will be conducting an on-ground activity for Security Week, to connect with its cardholders and ultimately spread the messages of security and safety. This year, throughout 2 weekends, Visa, in partnership with Exxon Mobil, is going to distribute educational giveaways to card users at 2 ExxonMobil gas stations, located on the North Coast. Card users will receive an edutainment set of cards and car shades, especially customized to grab the attention of the users with Visa's tips and messages to achieve the ultimate goal of promoting safe digital payment practices. Neil Fernandes, Visa's Head of Risk for the Middle East and North Africa, commented: "It is evident that consumer confidence in Egypt has increased over the years as the number of online shoppers has risen with the progression of eCommerce platforms, which provides a promising outlook. The future lies in digital commerce, and consumers must feel safe and know that their card data is protected. The advancement of security technologies coupled with educating cardholders with relevant security tips is integral, and that is why we are happy with our partnership with ExxonMobil. This initiative will help us expand our reach and empower our consumers with the necessary tips that will provide them with safety and security guidelines for their daily use, which is our mission." Moreover, ExxonMobil Egypt announced that their success in Egypt is built on a strong foundation of business principals and a deeply rooted culture of integrity. They added that their partnership with Visa stems from the twosides common vision for the security and safety of Egyptian consumers. Visa utilized all the data gathered from previous surveys that provided insights into different payment behaviours and experiences to propose the ultimate tips for Egyptian consumers. Some of the tips that were extracted from Visa's Egypt 2018 survey on trends in digital payments security, contribute to the usage of different payment methods, such as around 90% of consumers are waiting for more merchants to give them the option of QR based payments and mobile payments; 87% of consumers believe that it is easy to track transactions made using QR payments and that they are safer than payments made by cheque. Other tips encourage consumers to have confidence when using digital payments including; asking your bank to activate transaction alerts via SMS if available, which would allow a person to receive an SMS message after each transaction on the card and can immediately spot a fraudulent transaction. Some of Visa's key recommendations for consumers to engage in safe online shopping practices include; shopping at well-known e-commerce sites; avoiding using public WiFi connection for transactions; looking for the ‘s' after ‘http' in website addresses to confirm that a site offers (SSL) protection; activating Verified by Visa with bank to secure online payments; log out whenever you leave a website, especially if using a public computer; and not sharing your personal account information on social media, over email, phone or chat. Visa is continuously striving to educate consumers with regards to safety and security, in hopes that all shoppers improve the security of their payments, and that consumer confidence is increased, so that more people enjoy the benefits of digital payments.
