7 Benefits of PCI DSS Compliance

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a standard that comes up as an answer from card issuing banks and branded card networks (i.e. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, etc.) to strengthen the protection of cardholder data after the major card breaching, back in 2005, when 40 million cards were compromised.

That was a correct action to regain the trust from cardholders so they can still feel comfortable when using their cards to pay their transactions.

To successfully implement the standard, every organization that has obligation to comply, need to understand what benefits they will gain by being PCI-compliant. By keeping these benefits in mind, the objective of protecting cardholder data can be achieved successfully and much easier, because they know the benefits that they will get.

Actually, to comply is both obligation and investment for any merchant or organization that processes, stores and transmits cardholder data, and their investment will return in the form of tangible and intangible benefits, as follows:



Security Improvement – Decrease the Risk of Security Breaches

Like any other compliance programs, many organizations may have a question in their mind before they put efforts on a journey towards compliance: is this standard providing real impact and value if we implement it or just for the sake of compliance? This question is very important to address and should be answered seriously. For organizations that comply with PCI DSS requirements, there is a real value that they will get. A study conducted by Verizon stated that PCI compliant organizations are more likely to successfully resist a cardholder data breach significantly up to fifty percent. This means the PCI DSS with 12 requirements are an adequate set of security controls to protect cardholder data if we can implement them properly.

Get Peace of Mind of You and Your Customers

So, you will feel safe and your customers feel safe too. This is the result that you will get as you’ll be much less likely to suffer cardholder data breaches. You feel confident that you have done anything you should do to protect cardholder data. Your customers feel safe too, they believe that they provide their confidential data to a trusted company, that is you.

Improve Customer Relationship

According to a study conducted by Quirk’s Marketing Research Review in 2014 stated that 69% of consumers would be less inclined to do business with a breached organization. As an organization that complies with PCI DSS, you should be able to decrease the data breach significantly. This means you will have a better relationship with the customer. They will see you as a company that has a strong commitment to protect their data.

Increasing Profit

This is a direct impact on the peaceful feeling that your customers get when they have businesses with a trusted company/merchant that comply with PCI DSS. In its turn, this will grow the loyalty of the customers to your company and they will obviously be your free great marketing agents as they will tell their friends and relatives about your good and safe services and recommend them. You’ll keep existing customers with more transactions and also get new customers. More customers, more transactions, more profit. Isn’t that what you really want?

Avoid Costly Fines. The Risk Is Much Costly Than the Cost to Comply

Any company or merchant may understand the benefits of PCI compliant. They may also understand that it is their obligations to comply with the standard. But as a business entity, they always consider and think about cost and benefit in any decision they make. Well yes of course, in order to comply they should spend some money. The amount of this investment depends on how large your company handles card transactions per year. But when it comes to cost we should compare the cost to comply with the standard and the cost if we don’t comply. If a cardholder data breach happens (and it is possible to happen) any involved entity will be investigated. If say a merchant involved and in the time of breaching, it didn’t comply with PCI then they will get a costly fine. The acquiring bank may have to pay a fine of $5,000 to $100,000 per month to the payment brands for PCI compliance violations. The banks will most likely pass this fine down to the merchant eventually. And as stated above, the implementation of PCI requirements properly will decrease the data breaching. This is a real benefit for the company because its possibility of receiving fine will be decreased as well.

Company Image Building

Most customers may not understand the details of the standard but your compliance will make them believe that you have a strong commitment to protecting their cardholder data.

Sustain Your Business

Any merchant even with one transaction of credit cards has to comply with the standard if it doesn’t comply they will be at high risk. Think the worst case: you are subject to fines and you may also face lawsuits because failing to protect cardholder data. You will lose some money and your reputation is damaged. This may put your business in danger. So, to be PCI compliant is a must for any organization that store, process and transmit cardholder data in order to sustain their existence in this business.

When Organizations understand those above benefits, they will see that to be PCI-compliant is not just because they have to, but also because they need to in order to sustain their business, gain benefits and manage the risk they may have.