Validation, Assurance, and Digital Trust in Financial Transactions: DV, OV, and EV TLS/SSL digital certificates

Websites are ubiquitous in global commerce today. The security of websites, and protection of the user information gathered from them, has become regulated and a foundational building block for reputational trust. A tool used to secure communications between browsers and servers over a network are TLS/SSL certificates. 

Since there are several different kinds of websites in several different kinds of industries, TLS/SSL digital certificate providers offer products with varying levels of assurance.

A Domain-Validated (DV) TLS/SSL certificate provides the assurance that the holder has had their control over the domain/ URL, validated by the certificate authority issuing the digital certificate. This means the holder has applied for a DV TLS/SSL certificate with the issuing certificate authority, the certificate authority has validated the applicant has control over the domain or URL for which it’s requesting a digital certificate, and the certificate authority has granted the applicant to retrieve its digital certificate. 

The DV TLS/SSL digital certificate process is relatively easy to obtain for genuine applicants, as the domain control check is the only validation in the application process for issuance of the digital certificate[MS1] . However, sensitive transactions may require more elevated levels of assurance to provide trust for additional pieces of information pertaining to the certificate. 

For example, if a website visitor wants to simply trust that a site has secured traffic, a DV TLS/SSL certificate provides that assurance to its visitor. This also signals to the visitor that additional sensitive information may not be suitable to provide to this site, so the visitor should look for additional avenues to perform a transaction linked to this landing page. 

Organizations use Organization Validated (OV) digital certificates to help uphold their reputations and online presence. OV TLS/SSL certificates go one step farther in the validation process than DV certificates, where genuine applicants are issued OV certificates with the enhanced trust that the organization that owns the domain is who they say they are. This comes into play when organizations with a high degree of recognizability need to assert that their website is truly for their well-known company. 

Should a relatively new shop become popular quickly, but interactions on its site don’t involve handling any sensitive information, then an OV TLS/SSL certificate asserts that the communications on their site are secured. This means that the site genuinely represents the company who owns the certificate. An OV TLS/SSL certificate is great for sites that carry new popular items, or are affiliated merchants of the brands that they carry. Re-sale marketplaces that accept payment information on external sites like DePop, Threadup, Vestiaire Collective, Vinted, The Real Real, buycycle, SidelineSwap, Faire, Mercari, Etsy, also have apps. They have reputations to uphold as peer-to-peer marketplaces trusted to offer goods from vetted retailers.

Buyers must be assured they can trust the site they want to provide their financial information to. This includes online purchases, but also other financial transactions. Online trading platforms where a user may perform actions that bind them to a financial contract, such as working with Options in traditional stock market and cryptocurrency trading platforms, require maximum trust and credibility. 

Extended Validation (EV) TLS/SSL certificates assure the website visitor that the communications are secured by TLS/SSL, that the organization is genuinely represented on the domain as they are in the digital certificate, and that the organization legally exists, physically exists, and operationally exists. The elevated level of trust provided to a website visitor facilitates financial transactions in e-commerce and banking functions.

Whether you're running a peer-to-peer marketplace or a financial trading platform, choosing the right TLS/SSL certificate is critical. DV may be enough for basic encryption, but OV and EV certificates offer the assurance needed to protect reputations and secure sensitive transactions. 

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