What is PCI?

PCI is an acronym for Payment Card Industry. They have created a set of rules and regulations that have been set to reduce the prevalence of credit card fraud. This is known as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI was created in 2006 by a coalition of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and JCB to manage security standards and improve security throughout the entire transaction process.

Credit card fraud is a huge problem both online and on the high street, cards being stolen and personal details being retrieved by hackers. If your company intends to accept card payment, and store, process and transmit cardholder data, you need to host your data securely with a PCI compliant hosting provider.

When a credit card is used for fraud, the owner of the card will be protected against having to pay for goods that were illegally purchased. Online payment by credit card is now heavily controlled to try and stop fraud occurring, authorizations of cards and checks being carried out even for the smallest of payments.