You’ve probably heard about computer viruses that cause millions of dollars in damage or sensational arrests of hackers who steal credit card information. And you may have concerns about keeping sensitive member contribution data in an Internet website. Why then do large financial corporations allow their customers to trade stocks over the Internet and encourage online banking? The banks appreciate sparing the expense of sending paper statements. And the customers enjoy quick and easy access to their transaction histories. But did you know that online banking is actually safer than receiving paper statements in the mail?

Javelin Strategy and Research found in a recent study that people who receive bills electronically and pay them online are less likely to be the victims of fraud and identity theft than those who get bills in their mailbox and send out checks. Specifically, the study found that unsecured online transactions were responsible for fewer than 2.5 percent of identity theft cases.

Online banking actually helps protect against fraud, according to Bank of America e-commerce executive Sanjay Gupta, because it allows customers to confirm transactions and check account balances quickly and easily (see article by Anne Kandra of PC World magazine).

So if banks can reduce fraud and identity theft through online banking, then churches can also improve security by going online. Ascribe allows your church to create a Member Login area of your website. From this password protected area of your website, church members can log in and download their own year-end tax deductible giving statements. So every January, all you would need to do is email all your members and ask them to log in and download their own statements. A few weeks later, you could use Ascribe to print and mail hardcopy statements for all members who did not download the statement electronically. In this way, members who use Ascribe to retrieve their statements via the Internet reduce the risk of losing their statements in the mail to fraudsters.

Ascribe limits the amount of personally identifiable information database. It does not specifically store credit card numbers, National ID numbers (e.g., Social Security Numbers) or mother’s maiden name.

Ascribe administrators can enable SSL encryption to ensure that communications between the user’s computer and the Ascribe server is encrypted. The 128-bit encryption strength scrambles the data transmissions so that it is unintelligible to any eavesdroppers. SSL encryption comes standard with every Ascribe account.

(Note to system admins: A church does not need to acquire their own SSL certificate to use SSL as it will run on the ascribedata.com certificate.)

Using web-based software gives church administrators the additional peace of mind in knowing that the membership data is being stored in a physically secure location, with daily on-site and off-site backups.

So don’t let the fear of security issues keep you from exploring web-based software for churches. Ascribe provides five levels of security to protect your membership information.