If you are a merchant then one of the things that you might find yourself asking is "What is PCI compliance?" PCI is the acronym for Payment Card Industry. The Payment Card Industry is basically the top five companies that are known for their payment card processing. These five companies are American Express, Discover, Japanese Credit Bureau, Mastercard, and Visa. They are known for their logos and their logos are actually accepted around the globe in many different places.
If many small businesses lose their ability to accept credit card payments due to de-certification it could have effects that are far-reaching. All stores who process cards are impacted by this new requirement. Online stores that use a hosted 'virtual' processing system are not PCI compliant. These merchants are not exempt from PCI compliance. Fraud prevention is not a laughing matter and needs to be taken seriously. What can you do if you are a merchant to be sure you are not de-certified?
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. This might include a deadline in which certain things might have to be completed in a specific time frame. The things that they PCI compliance is asking for are not anything that should not already be done anyways. They maintain that you have to have a secure connection and that there are appropriate firewalls preventing someone from being able to hack into the system by the compliance deadline.
This issue of compliance is done to protect the card holders and the banks from being liable when someone has illegally purchased something on one of the cards. If you are an online business then the system that you have must actually make sure that things are fully protected and that anyone is not supposed to be there is not able to get information. Further there has be special attention paid to anything that could make the company more vulnerable.
So by maintaining proper security standards there is not going to be a cost of PCI compliance. The problem is that the fines are rather heavy if you are not in compliance. Now if you have to change some things and this ends up costing you some money you can always consider the cost of the fines and the reputation of your business if you had chosen to not follow through with this important compliance. In the end you will easily see how this is a much cheaper option then taking your chances on being fined.
If many small businesses lose their ability to accept credit card payments due to de-certification it could have effects that are far-reaching. All stores who process cards are impacted by this new requirement. Online stores that use a hosted 'virtual' processing system are not PCI compliant. These merchants are not exempt from PCI compliance. Fraud prevention is not a laughing matter and needs to be taken seriously. What can you do if you are a merchant to be sure you are not de-certified?
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. This might include a deadline in which certain things might have to be completed in a specific time frame. The things that they PCI compliance is asking for are not anything that should not already be done anyways. They maintain that you have to have a secure connection and that there are appropriate firewalls preventing someone from being able to hack into the system by the compliance deadline.
This issue of compliance is done to protect the card holders and the banks from being liable when someone has illegally purchased something on one of the cards. If you are an online business then the system that you have must actually make sure that things are fully protected and that anyone is not supposed to be there is not able to get information. Further there has be special attention paid to anything that could make the company more vulnerable.
So by maintaining proper security standards there is not going to be a cost of PCI compliance. The problem is that the fines are rather heavy if you are not in compliance. Now if you have to change some things and this ends up costing you some money you can always consider the cost of the fines and the reputation of your business if you had chosen to not follow through with this important compliance. In the end you will easily see how this is a much cheaper option then taking your chances on being fined.
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