Turn PCI compliance into a new competitive advantage

You already know that shifting to automated payments is your best strategy to motivating more of your customers to pay on time. And, if you’re currently in the process of selecting an automated payments system for your organisation, turn PCI compliance into a new competitive advantage question of how to keep your customer’s card details safe is probably already lingering in your mind.

PCI Compliance Security Ezidebit

After you’ve made the switch to automated payments, your organisation will be processing an increasing number of card transactions – and that’s why PCI compliance needs to be top of your agenda before you implement your new automated payments system. To help you get prepared, in this article our experts discuss the top PCI compliance issues facing financial controllers today:

What is PCI compliance and why does it matter?
What are the costs of PCI compliance and non-compliance?
Which organisational stakeholders care about PCI compliance?
What’s the quickest way to achieving PCI compliance level 1?
How to achieve top-level data security and get a new competitive advantage.

What is PCI compliance and why does it matter?

PCI or PCI DSS, is the short way of referring to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. PCI standards apply to every organisation that deals with their customers’ card information – regardless of the size of the organisation or the number of transactions that the organisation processes. So, whether you’re the financial controller of a local business operating out of a garage or overseeing a nation-wide operation, understanding and conforming to PCI standards needs to be one of your top concerns – especially now that you’re getting serious about implementing automated payments.

What are the costs of PCI compliance and non-compliance?

The costs of constantly monitoring and maintaining your organisation’s PCI compliance may seem high – but the costs of non-compliance (or worse, ignorance) are even higher. Penalties for non-compliance range from increased transaction fees to fines of up to $100 000 per month. Needless to say, penalties like these can be catastrophic to many organisations. Moreover, should your customer details become exposed to hackers, the damage to your organisation’s reputation may be worse than the financial penalties.

Which organisational stakeholders care about PCI compliance?

Even if you don’t have a corporate security strategy already in place, achieving PCI compliance is a solid foundation from which to start building one. If you can achieve full PCI-DSS compliance, your leadership team can rest assured that your systems are secure, your customers will feel confident handing over their sensitive payment card information and payment brands will be more apt to do business with you. All of this added security goes a long way towards satisfying key organisational stakeholders such as your board members, your shareholders and your customers.

What’s the quickest way to achieving PCI-DSS compliance?

Regardless of whether your business operates via bricks (i.e. a physical shop) or clicks (i.e. an online shop), you can bet your bottom dollar that your customers are very savvy (and selective) about who gets access to their personal information. In today’s self-service and automatic-service marketplace, offering customers the assurance of guaranteed top-level banking security has become a new competitive point of difference for all organisations that offer debit card and credit card payment options to their customers. Your most efficient and effective strategy to achieving this is to partner with an automated payments provider that comes with the world’s highest level of payment security – that’s PCI compliance level 1 and who support you with tools and advice to address the aspects of PCI-DSS compliance you retain responsibility for after outsourcing.

How to achieve top-level data security and get a new competitive advantage

As you move towards implementing your new automated payments system into your organisation, you need peace of mind that your customers’ card details will be in safe hands. Outsource PCI compliance to your chosen partner and get all the benefits of the highest level of payments security.