If your business is accepting credit cards, PCI is something you should understand clearly.
Most people think of PCI as some rogue fee that might be charged to their merchant statements. But there’s more to PCI than just the pesky fee (which, by the way, Titan does NOT charge).
Below is an explanation of the 3 PCI terms you likely hear most often.
PCI-DDS
For starters, PCI is actually PCI DDS, or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. In order to prevent and reduce credit card fraud, the largest credit card companies (American Express, Discover, JCB, International, MasterCard, and Visa) founded PCI.
Credit cards have been a top target for phisher’s, skimmers, and other rather notorious bad guys who want to get card information for their own spending purposes. So this has led to more strict and complex standards for business owners like you who handle payment card data.
PCI Standards
So every business that handles credit card information must meet PCI standards that were established by the PCI DSS.
This all might sound really intimidating and scary, but the PCI standards are really just a list of six common sense objectives that small businesses need to follow in order to keep their customers’ card information safe and avoid any kind of legal liability in the event of theft or data breach.
Requirements set by PCI DSS forbid merchants from storing magnetic-stripe data of the transaction obtained on a credit card, account numbers must be protected wherever they are stored, business anti-virus programs need to be up-to-date, electronic devices require password protection, and businesses must be using the most PCI compliant credit card equipment.
PCI Fee
This is why most people have heard of PCI. Many service providers require a mandatory PCI fee that is said to cover the cost of PCI compliance upkeep for each merchant account that is created. The cost of PCI fees vary among processors from low monthly fees to extremely high annual installments. And many service providers are unfortunately not always upfront and honest about what they will charge you.
But Titan Merchant Services feels that you shouldn’t have to pay for PCI Compliance at all. In fact, we try our best to make sure our customers are never charged a PCI fee.
We offer PCI compliant credit card machines for FREE, and we waive the PCI fee after our merchants finish the PCI Compliance Self-Assessment Questionnaire.
Want more information? Keep reading through our blog or contact us right now to find out how to get the lowest processing rates and free equipment with no PCI fee.
