The Importance of PCI Compliance to Your E-commerce Business

The ability to take payments online comes with huge responsibility. Security is crucial for any e-commerce business or an Internet shopper. Fortunately there are many ways in which businesses can help keep online shopping safe.

To help regulate and secure this market all e-commerce businesses in the UK are required to be PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) Compliant.

The rules to becoming compliant vary depending mainly on how many sales your business does in a month. A company can either ensure that they have the systems required to trade in-house, or use a certified payment service provider (PSP) and outsource the risk prevention to them. Most of the large PSP’s will be Level 1 (the highest) PCI Compliant, meaning that they can securely process an unlimited number of transactions every year.

It takes a lot of effort for any e-commerce business to gain the certification individually. This is because not only do they need to ensure that their website is safe, but additionally need to ensure that they are able to securely process and store cardholder details. This last requirement is the main reason why most businesses nowadays prefer to use the more experienced and better prepared payment providers to manage PCI DSS for them.

If you are using payment pages provided by your PSP, then you will not need to worry about any of the technical requirements. Your systems will also not need to be scanned regularly, something which those businesses using their own payment pages need to go through four times per year.

If your business is not PCI Compliant and you accept card payments online then you could be hit with severe fines and have your ability to take such payments removed.

PCI Compliance has to be taken seriously by every e-commerce business as it helps to keep the whole industry alongside customers safe. Breaches will occur, as no system can ever be 100% secure, but the potential of that happening is significantly reduced if both the retailers and payment providers follow the rules outlined by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.