PCI Compliance has been the buzz word for the last several years, but what is it really? And how does it affect our world?

PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. In 2006, the five major credit card companies (American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, and Visa International) got together and developed standards on how to protect card transactions.

In addition to purchases made in person, telephone purchase and online payments had to be considered.

The PCI SSC (Security Standards Council) has defined requirements on the storage and transmittal of both credit and debit card information.

The PCI SSC broke it down to 5 business models. Designing rules based on the type of transactions that business conduct. Some businesses, take credit card information over the phone or internet, others make a carbon copy imprint of a card or some swipe a card to in machine that just transmits data. Depending on how credit card information is received determines which rules apply.

PCI Compliance – Providing Safety to Consumers

As consumers, it is convenient when conducting multiple business transactions with the same merchant or vendor, that they have a credit card on file, and with the speed of internet, it makes it all happen in mere seconds.

When a credit is swiped or manually entered the process begins. The merchant is contacting a central processing centre, that in turns contacts the bank that issued the credit card, to determine if in fact there is credit available on the card being used. Once the bank has determined that enough credit is available, a confirmation code is transmitted back through the processor to the vendor.

PCI compliance ensures that during all of these steps that the integrity and privacy of the data – your data is maintained. Internal storage requirements, firewall security, user access, all play a role in obtaining the status of being PCI compliant.

PCI compliance is good protection for both the consumer and business.