Payment security
The Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS) was established as an industry-wide set of
requirements and processes to help ensure that cardholders can make
purchases confident in the knowledge that the information on their
card will be protected from fraudsters.
Overview
The PCI DSS ensures that valuable cardholder account data is
always secure. It is intended for any organisation that
stores, transmits or processes cardholder account and transaction
data.
More on the PCI DSS
Merchants
Acquirers are responsible for ensuring that all of their
merchants comply with the PCI DSS requirements. Merchant
compliance validation, however, has been prioritised based on
the volume of transactions and the potential risk and exposure
introduced into the payment system.
More on merchant compliance
Merchant Agents
Merchant Agents are businesses that provide services that come
into contact with cardholder information, by storing, processing or
transmitting it on behalf of their merchants or retailer. These
include, but are not limited to, payment gateways, payment
applications, shopping carts and web hosts. From January 2012
Merchant Agents should register their services on our online
registration tool.
More on merchant
agents
Service providers
Service providers play a key role in processing Visa cardholder
data and consist of two groups:
- Merchant agents – service providers that directly or indirectly
process, store or transmit Visa account information on behalf of
merchants
- Member agents – service providers that directly or indirectly
process, store or transmit Visa account information on behalf of
members
Issuers and acquirers are responsible for ensuring that
all service providers that touch Visa account
holder data comply with the Payment Cards Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS) and are registered with Visa Europe.
More on service providers
Payment applications
The Payment Application Data Security Standard helps software
vendors develop payment applications that increase security and
make it easier for merchants to comply with industry security
standards.
More on payment applications
PIN security
The security of cardholders’ PINs is essential to the success of
our business and we have established a PIN Security Programme to
ensure that PINs are protected during the authorisation
process.
More on PIN security
Downloads and resources
Take advantage of Visa Europe’s valuable resources to learn more
about the PCI DSS and payment system security.
Access downloads and resources