PCI Compliance
PCI DSS is applicable to all organizations that accept, process, store or transmit payment card information. It is a set of requirements designed to continuously monitor controls to enable your organization to process card payments securely and reduce card fraud.
PCI DSS compliance is not mandatory by law, but as the standard was created by all major credit card providers (American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and JCB), it is enforced by their acquiring banks or service providers. Merchants that do not comply maybe subject to fines, card replacement costs, investigative audits and loss of brand reputation.
Benefits of PCI Compliance
- Mitigate security risks. Complying with the requirements of PCI DSS, will help your organization to implement controls that mitigate the risks of a data security breach and card fraud. The 12 requirements outlined in PCI DSS help organizations to implement sufficient controls to protect cardholder data.
- Brand reputation. PCI DSS compliance helps your organization to reduce the risk of a security breach, therefore protecting your brand from reputational loss should an incident occur and providing you with increased peace of mind.
- Client and stakeholder confidence. By following best practice, PCI compliance will directly increase your client or stakeholder’s confidence in your ability to protect their card details. It will differentiate you from the competition as they are more likely to choose you over a non-compliant organization.
- Reduction in costs. Becoming PCI compliant mitigates the risk of a security incident occurring and therefore, reducing the likelihood of your organization receiving a fine. PCI compliance doesn’t completely illuminate the risk of a security breach, just reduces the possibility. If your organization is breached, being PCI compliant at the time of the breach will reduce the chance of your organization receiving a fine.