Many people believe that PCI compliance is required by law; however, except for in a few states that have adopted the PCI DSS as a part of their consumer protection laws, it is not. You won’t go to jail for not being PCI compliant, but that doesn’t mean that there are no consequences.
For one thing, you could be fined by any of the credit card companies that you accept through your merchant account. The size of the fine varies, but it can be quite large if a data breach occurred that resulted in significant financial losses.
More importantly, your business’ reputation could be hurt. The whole purpose of PCI compliance is to take steps to improve the security of customers’ financial data. While it’s still possible that your system could be hacked even if you’re compliant, if you don’t adhere to the best practices established by the guidelines, you’re at a much greater risk.
Studies have found that 60 percent of small businesses that suffer from data breaches that involve customer credit card numbers are out of business within 6 months to a year. The reason why is the breach of confidence. When word gets out that the company’s systems are not secure, their reputation is damaged, and it can be hard for a small company to ever rebound. With so much riding on your brand image, it’s not worth the risk, especially when you consider that being PCI compliant does not require much work for merchants.
Much of PCI compliance is the responsibility of the payment gateway or merchant services provider that you choose. The best thing that you can do to ensure PCI compliance is to choose a provider that meets all of the standards set forth by PCI DSS and install antivirus software on your computers.
You should also develop policies and procedures that safeguard your customers’ credit card information. Only employees that need to know the information should have access to it, and each member of your team who has access should have a unique account or ID that is password protected. Also, you should make sure that your data is kept safe by storing it on an off-site data center that is PCI compliant.
Merchant Stronghold offers merchant accounts through a payment gateway that is fully PCI compliant and allows businesses to accept electronic payments anywhere. For more information about our services, please contact us today.
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