The Retail Road to PCI Compliance

Small businesses and retailers can be especially vulnerable to data breaches but are often overwhelmed by the PCI-compliance process which can appear more complex than it actually is.  Contrary to what many believe, the PCI standard isn’t simply a recommended ‘best practice’ approach, but a requirement that must be met by any business handling, storing or transmitting payment credit card details. 

Retail credit card breaches happen with disturbing regularity, but not all of them make headline news. Preparing ahead of time makes it easier to avoid disaster when and if it does strike. A leak exposing transactional data can have significant, long term negative impact on customer loyalty, jeopardising a retailer’s integrity and their consumer privacy.

The PCI DSS standard (PCI DSSS) which is supported by the major credit card companies is a way of measuring your level of security fitness (PCIDSS) and represents a set of principles that ensure a customer’s sensitive payment information is handled and stored securely. The standard is relevant to every retailer that takes card payments and includes measures such as implementing a firewall, not storing customers’ card details on paper or computers and sending only encrypted data over open networks. This ensures cardholders’ details are kept out of the hands of data thieves and potential loss or leakage.