Why do you need PCI Compliance?

If your business requires you to handle card data, you may be required to meet an exhaustive list of security controls as per Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS). There are thousands of pages of documentation about PCI DSS and hundreds of pages of forms to fill for validating your security controls. This is easier said than done and you may have to deploy several resources to manage and document this activity. Simply reading through the documents would take several weeks, let alone implementing it!

What is PCI-DSS?

PCI DSS is the global security standard for all entities that store, process, or transmit cardholder data and/or sensitive authentication data. PCI DSS sets a baseline level of protection for consumers and helps reduce fraud and data breaches across the entire payment ecosystem. It is applicable to any organization that accepts or processes payment cards (Visa/MasterCard/Amex/Discover/Diners)

Handling card data

Some businesses require handling of sensitive card data to fulfill certain functionalities or to provide better user experience. Businesses that handle such data are required to meet each of the 300+ security controls in PCI DSS. There is no two ways about this process, even if the data passes through the system for a jiffy we still need to implement all security controls. If you would like to avoid such overheads you may consider using our PCI Widgets instead of handling the card data in your system.

If your business does not need to handle card data you would still need to comply with a minimum set of PCI and OWASP guidelines which would enhance the security of your system.

Storing data securely

Businesses that handles or stores card data, needs to define the scope of its cardholder data environment (CDE). PCI DSS defines CDE as the people, processes and technologies that store, process, or transmit credit card data—or any system connected to it. Since all 300+ security requirements in PCI DSS apply to CDE, it is imperative to have segmentation between the payment environment from the rest of the systems to limit the scope of PCI validation. Without demarcation of CDE and Non-CDE systems the PCI validation scope would broaden and you would end up spending more time, effort, resources and in-turn huge costs.

Continual validation

PCI-DSS compliance is a continual activity that requires the controls to be tested quarterly. Businesses that comply with PCI DSS need to revalidate the controls and undergo audits annually without any exceptions. If you skip revalidation, you may risk being flagged off as Non-Compliant by entities that mandate PCI compliance.

List of PCI-DSS controls

Levels of PCI-DSS Compliance

Level 1

Businesses that annually process over 6 million transactions of Visa or MasterCard, or declared as Level 1 by Payment Networks

What is Self-Assessment?

To simplify PCI compliance, the PCI council has released 9 Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQs) that are a subset of the entire PCI DSS requirement. Choose the most relevant SAQ applicable as per your business construct. A PCI-council approved QSA needs to check if each requirement has been met.

How M2PFintech helps businesses with PCI DSS compliance?

At M2PFintech, we believe in making complex simple, we have chalked out a simple plan for your business to be PCI compliant. We have built PCI-Widgets for key elements like displaying Card Data, CVV, PIN set/reset. The primary goal of the PCI-Widget is for businesses to offer the features related to CHD without the need to process any related data through their systems. M2PFintech PCI-Widgets are available as simple Web based (iFrame) snippets to ensure ease of use in a variety of front-end interfaces like Website, Mobile-site, Android and iOS apps.

With simplified SAQs and PCI widgets, M2PFintech aims to turn your PCI compliance into a mere formality. For Fintech startups, it would save boatloads of work and for established players it can result in huge savings on resources – both people and systems.

To all our clients and partners, regardless of how we integrate, we would be happy to guide in navigating the complexities of PCI DSS. We will advise on which PCI form to use and how you can tackle your compliance overhead.

In case you need to undergo a full-fledged PCI-DSS compliance exercise we have established relationships with leading PCI QSA organizations and can get your compliance expedited.