If your business accepts credit cards, you have probably been recently advised that you will be charged a new annual fee to pay for the cost of keeping your business compliant with the latest required credit card security regulations as handed down by Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. This article will explain what compliance is all about.
First of all, let's get a few terms explained.
PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. DSS stands for Data Security Standard. The credit card issuers have suffered huge losses due to credit card fraud and they have decided to take new steps to prevent as much of that as possible. These steps include coordinating with merchants to establish and enforce new credit card number protection strategies including the better encryption of credit card numbers when transmitted during a sales authorization by a merchant, and storage of customer credit card data afterward.
There are basically two ways to get a sale authorized: either using a credit card terminal next to your cash register (or integrated into your POS) or via Internet. Some merchants use a dial-up terminal and others use a high-speed Internet connection. Either way, the card issuers are concerned that transaction data be transmitted securely. There have been many headlines about breeches, wherein hundreds of thousands, even millions of credit card numbers are stolen. Hackers tap into phone lines and Internet connections every day.
So – here we are. Every bank and other credit card processing company will be passing on the cost of these increased security standards to their merchants. So please do not go cancelling your merchant account or trying to switch to another processor who does not or will not charge you this compliance fee, because you are going to have this fee from now on, regardless of which processor you are with.
Now, let's talk about what you, as a merchant, will have to do to become and remain compliant with PCI DSS.
http://www.merchantcircle.com/blogs/Credit.Card.Merchant.News.954-513-0762/2009/5/What-is-The-New-Merchant-PCI-Compliance-/237855