More than 50% of Americans using Payment Apps don’t care about their own Data Security

Payment apps, like Venmo, Paypal and Zelle are dominating the personal finance world, used by 90 million Americans. A new study from Money Crashers finds that more than half of Americans who use payment apps aren’t concerned with their information security practices — even though financial data is at risk. Among the key findings of the study:

• More than half (52%) of people aren’t concerned with the security of payment apps.
• Only 19% of people read payment apps’ privacy policies.
• Almost one-third (30%) of people have decided against downloading a payment
• 20% of respondents expressed data security concerns and even still this small group expressed the willingness to use the peer to peer currency exchange apps regardless of the security concerns
• 26% of respondents never considered using a payment app before

Virtually nobody reads the Privacy Policy or Terms & Conditions word for word

Venmo reported a $40 million loss in fraud reimbursements during the first quarter of 2018 alone.

Know what information the app is looking at or collecting and why?

• What information the app is collecting
• Whether your information will be used for secondary purposes (such as marketing)
• Whether your information will be shared with third parties
• What the app’s policy is on sharing information with law enforcement
• Whether information is protected in all phases of collection and storage
• Whether the app allows users to delete their data
• Whether the app uses personal information to build user profiles for non-primary use

Make Your Payment Apps and Transactions More Secure

• Read the Privacy Policy. Learn how your information is being collected and how marketers or advertisers can use it.
• Use a Password Generator. Password protection is crucial in securing your financial information. Use a password generator to come up with and protect your password.
• Enable Two-Factor Authentication. Go a step further with password protection and configure an extra layer of security with two-factor authentication.