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Meeting the PCI DSS compliance deadline - 30th June

As the internet evolves and permeates evermore into our daily lives and homes so does the continual issue of online security. If your business accepts payment cards then compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Standards (PCI DSS) applies to you.

Compliance with the PCI DSS standards has officially been compulsory since 2005, although up until now has been loosely enforced. As the issue of online security has repeatedly hit the headlines and internet retailers have been hit by a surge of online scams payment card providers have insisted upon even more stringent enforcement of these rules, hence the 30th June deadline.

PCI DSS compliance in short is a single security standard supported by the major credit and debit card providers including both Visa and Mastercard that works to put into place a variety of procedures within your business to safeguard cardholder data, such as the use of anti-virus and firewall software and the encryption of payment card data.

As well as online trading PCI DSS compliance also reaches the offline practices of the retail industry taking into consideration the access of cardholder data produced from conventional high street retailing procedures that produce paper trails as well as electronic records.

It has to be said that compliance with the PCI DSS standards has been slow to say the very least, influenced largely by the hesitancy of banks to pressure large retailers into compliance. Furthermore targeting the masses had little to gain for them until the time came that card issuers had implemented the standards among the large retailers. Now implemented among the likes of Amazon and Marks & Spencer banks are now applying pressure throughout the retail industry to comply with PCI DSS standards by the end of June.

Despite scepticism among its critics PCI DSS compliance is likely to be a swift affair throughout the industry. It's often crucial, particularly when trading online to keep up with the standards required of you if not for your customers perspective of your business as from a regulatory perspective. This said implementing is far from straight forward and likely to cause headaches for smaller companies due to the fact that compliance, although based on size is still the same for smaller companies as it is for the corporate giants... Luckily though there is a 70 page manual to read that covers everything you need to know!

For online trading PCI DSS compliance is a far more straight forward procedure and for high street retailers there is of course help and solutions readily available. Systems such as 'tokenization of card data' can be relatively easily implemented as part of compliance, this essentially results in not having to store the data which is at the heart of this regulation.

Whether or not the deadline for PCI DSS compliance is met it is of course a major step in the right direction for the improvement of both online and offline retailing as regards payment card security and as a result can only help to encourage our customers to do business with us. For more information on PCI DSS compliance and selling on the internet contact contact us today