The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) applies to companies of any size that accept credit card payments. If your company intends to accept card payment, and store, process or transmit cardholder data, you need to host your data securely with a PCI compliance hosting provider. According to the PCI Security Standards Council, there are 12 PCI compliant requirements that meet a variety of security goals. These goals include things like building and maintaining a secure network, protecting card holder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access control measures and maintaining an information security policy.
The cards can actually be issued by one of these companies or by a bank that has a contract with one of these companies. Now the companies will also make deals with some merchants and even some online merchants in order to make sure that they accept their card and their logo. Keep in mind that there is always going to be a PCI compliance deadline to consider. As a merchant when you accept credit cards then you are required to operate under certain PCI compliance requirements. All of these will be outlines in your merchant agreement that you signed when you started accepting credit cards.
There is really no cost of PCI compliance unless you are not compliant and then you can be fined. The thing is that if you are not compliant you can get fined very heavily from the bank. This is because the bank is actually being fined by the credit card processing companies and then they are passing on the fine to you as the consumer who was under them and consequently had broken their contract. So it is essential not to have the cost of the compliance that you actually focus on the agreement and understand what is required of you.
Following PCI DSS will give you guidelines to protect your own data. Moreover, by merging your own security measures with the measures to satisfy PCI data security standards compliance, the PCI DSS fulfillment will become just an incremental burden, much easier to implement. You may not have a choice in following the PCI standards. No matter how you slice it, PCI is a monopoly of sorts. If you are found non-compliant, and unable to process credit card, debit cards with one of the five logos, you may not be able to process many online transactions at all. Yes, there is PayPal, eJunkie, and other online processors, but they usually operate in very specialized markets, and do not have as broad a reach as Visa and Mastercard.
They may also charge you higher fees. On the other hand, if you continue to process transactions through Visa and Mastercard when non PCI compliant, and avoiding a PCI audit, you may face steep fees and penalties, especially in the case of the breach and compromise of cardholder information. Don't take PCI compliance lightly, it is really important.
The cards can actually be issued by one of these companies or by a bank that has a contract with one of these companies. Now the companies will also make deals with some merchants and even some online merchants in order to make sure that they accept their card and their logo. Keep in mind that there is always going to be a PCI compliance deadline to consider. As a merchant when you accept credit cards then you are required to operate under certain PCI compliance requirements. All of these will be outlines in your merchant agreement that you signed when you started accepting credit cards.
There is really no cost of PCI compliance unless you are not compliant and then you can be fined. The thing is that if you are not compliant you can get fined very heavily from the bank. This is because the bank is actually being fined by the credit card processing companies and then they are passing on the fine to you as the consumer who was under them and consequently had broken their contract. So it is essential not to have the cost of the compliance that you actually focus on the agreement and understand what is required of you.
Following PCI DSS will give you guidelines to protect your own data. Moreover, by merging your own security measures with the measures to satisfy PCI data security standards compliance, the PCI DSS fulfillment will become just an incremental burden, much easier to implement. You may not have a choice in following the PCI standards. No matter how you slice it, PCI is a monopoly of sorts. If you are found non-compliant, and unable to process credit card, debit cards with one of the five logos, you may not be able to process many online transactions at all. Yes, there is PayPal, eJunkie, and other online processors, but they usually operate in very specialized markets, and do not have as broad a reach as Visa and Mastercard.
They may also charge you higher fees. On the other hand, if you continue to process transactions through Visa and Mastercard when non PCI compliant, and avoiding a PCI audit, you may face steep fees and penalties, especially in the case of the breach and compromise of cardholder information. Don't take PCI compliance lightly, it is really important.
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