PCI Compliance Guide: Why USA eCommerce Start-Ups Must look for PCI Compliance

E-Commerce start-ups depend on the card-not-present payment mode for their transactions. This payment mode poses an underlying threat for data thefts or hacker attacks.

There have been numerous cases of credit card compromise in the past. Millions of cardholder’s data has been hacked resulting in huge settlements and big loses to the industry. Going through data theft is time-consuming and burdening on both the customer and the E-Commerce business.

To protect your customer’s profile and data, there needs to be comprehensive guidelines. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created primarily by a few payments card networks like Mastercard, Visa, American Express etc. a decade back. The council has since evolved to assist the online businesses to have systems and processes in place to avoid any data thefts or breach.

What is PCI compliance?

The PCI DSS guidelines that are laid down are a set of rules for all the businesses that process and store the cardholder’s details. Some of the best practises for the businesses are also laid down.

The Risks of PCI Non-Compliance

First, let us have a glimpse of the risks involved if you are not compliant with PCI guidelines.

1. Penalty – You might be attracting fines ranging from $5000 to $500,000 per month. These are referred to PCI non-compliance fees.
2. Suspension of credit cards – Staying non-compliant leads to suspension of credit card use for making payments, which is a dooms day for eCommerce companies.
3. Notification and credit monitoring – In case a non-compliance issue is detected, or if a company has gaps in their security system, a Common Point of purchase (CPP) notice is issued. This a short notice to resolve the breach or non-compliance issue, while the case is being reviewed by the PCI.
4. Liability for fraud charges – A non-compliant and weakly secured system is fraudsters den for stealing financial and personal data. Nevertheless, PCI does not help prevent data breaches but at least does not attract too much penalty.
5. GDPR and privacy regulations – Any kind of data breaches is the result of non-compliance of PCI DSS and GDPR, which focuses on privacy issues. Penalties are high from both the parties for companies who do not stay compliant.

Companies who do not comply with PCI DSS guidelines, lose their brand value and reputation coupled with the penalties. If you own an eCommerce store, you may not want to end up dealing with a security breach leading to legal battles. Ecommerce businesses must keep intact all security parameters to protect the business against cybersecurity threats. Keep your business PCI compliant and securely design and use the payment gateway. Any data be it financial or personal must be transmitted through secured protocols. Those eCommerce companies who outsource the payment process must also stay compliant to PCI but with reduced guidelines.

Conclusion

Securing your eCommerce business payment gateways takes some amount of effort but surely will give you results in terms of securing your business against online threats. Staying PCI compliant is always a boon to online businesses. Having your eCommerce platforms secured enough keeps your customers loyalty intact and brings in potential customers who can trust purchases with you. This tends to bring in more customers and increases your customer base and loyalty. PCI compliance is just not securing your customer data but also keeping your business reputation and customer values intact and high.

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