Reports in the new year are fairly encouraging when it comes to PCI compliance. According to SC Magazine US, “The number of large corporations in adherence jumped from 12 percent in March 2006 to 77 percent by the end of last year, while medium-sized merchants improved by nearly 50 percent in the year beginning December 2006.”

That covers what are identified as Level 1 merchants, those generating 6 million or more Visa transactions annually. For Level 2, Visa confirms that 62% are compliant while that still leaves Level 3 merchants.

Level 3 merchants are traditional brick and mortar businesses but this also e-commerce/internet retailers.

The 2,596 so-called Level 3 e-commerce-only merchants, those submitting 20,000 to 1 million Visa transactions a year, had a 54% full validation rate as of Dec. 31, with another 20% having submitted an initial validation or were in remediation. [Digital Transactions]

Things are looking up in terms of being a credit card user and consumer who deals with merchants such as these. The responsibility is shifting more than ever over to the merchant as fines and levies are one thing, but they’re certainly not as hefty as security breaches which lead to potential loses in the millions. The cost of PCI compliance is certainly a justified expense for any business.

For more information about PCI compliance visit the PCI website and take the self-assessment. If you process transactions, whether it be online or through a brick and mortar business, feel free to contact us to find out about how E-xact can become your compliant payment gateway solution.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.