What is PCI DSS?
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is an industry-mandated set of regulations for any entities that process or store card data. The standards were created in 2004 after a surge in card data breaches as a way to protect consumers and hold businesses accountable for breaches.
PCI DSS rules hold businesses to 12 core security requirements like installing firewalls and antivirus software, requiring complex passwords, protecting stored data, encrypting data transmissions and routinely testing systems and processes to name a few.
The requirements are intended to prevent breaches; if a company fails to meet all 12 of the PCI DSS security requirements and experiences a data security breach, it holds full financial responsibility for related damages and faces fines of up to $500,000.
The PCI DSS Compliance Certification process
For companies big and small, gaining PCI DSS certification isn’t a simple or a cheap endeavor. The process can take a team months to complete and oftentimes businesses spend hefty sums hiring external auditors to closely examine their systems and processes and assign remediation tasks. After all PCI DSS requirements are met and PCI DSS certification is awarded, merchants must conduct quarterly vulnerability scans and complete annual assessment reports to maintain compliance. Additionally, large scale merchants are also required to submit to and pay for yearly onsite security assessments.
Paymentwall: Your PCI DSS Compliance solution
Fortunately for developers and companies who sell digital goods and services, there’s an easy way to avoid the hassle and high cost of PCI DSS compliance–Paymentwall. As of June 10, we’re a PCI DSS level 1 certified service provider, meaning we’re a trusted, secure payment processor authorized to process more than 6 million Visa and Mastercard transactions annually. Paymentwall takes security seriously; we’re dedicated to providing easy to use and secure payment solutions to our merchants.
At Paymentwall, we strive to make payments human again. Working with state-of-the-art technology, our top-notch team is finding ways to simplify payments for our merchants and their end users.
Here’s a few ways we’re doing that:
User experience
Paymentwall wants our merchants to succeed, so we’ve simplified our payment processes, helping you increase conversion rates and preventing customers from abandoning their purchases at checkout. As a PCI DSS certified payments provider, we can process card data without accessing external banking systems; meaning your users can complete checkout without leaving your site or app.
We offer fully-customizable, seamless integration and free optimization support to ensure your website or application’s checkout page is both functional and aesthetically aligned with your brand’s image (white label), and our live 24/7 customer support ensures instant troubleshooting help for you and your customers.
Recurring billing
Visa, Mastercard and other prominent financial services forbid companies from storing card data on external non-PCI DSS compliant servers, preventing them from offering recurring billing. As a PCI DSS compliant service provider, Paymentwall can tokenize and store card data on our servers, making it easy for us to provide subscription billing options to our merchants so that they can provide uninterrupted service to their subscription customers without getting bank confirmations for every subscription renewal.
Tokenization
In order to meet PCI DSS standards, credit card data must be protected when stored. A popular method to ensure this protection is Tokenization. Tokenization is a process in which credit card numbers are replaced within the system with a random value (or token). Once we’ve collected the card information, we submit it to the card network for authorization. When the network has confirmed the card information, we generate the random token and pass it back to the merchant to be stored in their system in place of an actual credit card number. This token can be used for future purchases, without the need for the actual credit card number. Generally speaking, the last four digits of the credit card number will be present somewhere within the token as a means of identification. Token numbers cannot be mathematically reversed and effectively make credit data worthless to hackers. Our token storage complies with PCI standards.
Fraud protection
We take security seriously at Paymentwall, which is why we provide state-of-the-art fraud protection and risk management tools. Paymentwall tokenizes card information, making it easy for us to access transactions and detect suspicious behavior immediately while ensuring all personal information stays private. Our PCI DSS certification is indicative of our accountability as a payments provider and we’re dedicated to upholding all PCI DSS requirements so we can continue offering peace of mind to our merchants and their customers.