Most participants in the merchant acquiring / merchant account business are also obliged to comply with PCI standards, which are a set of guidelines for security of credit cardholder information. These standards are of immediate concern to merchants who are most at risk of being out of compliance. More information on PCI compliance as well as the Visa and MasterCard equivalent standards is available here:
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
Visa Cardholder Information Security Program (Visa CISP)
MasterCard Site Data Protection Program (MasterCard SDP Program)
The PCI Standard is the ‘flavor of the month’ in the merchant acquiring world. The recent PCI compliance issues at Heartland Payments highlights the fact that even large processors can run into PCI compliance issues. One question on the minds of may in the payments industry is if PCI compliance fees are more a profit center than a means of improving security.
