Visa temporarily delisted Heartland Payment Systems as an approved service provider because it was found that Heartland was out of compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Even though Heartland has made corrections to its systems, and has been re-listed by Visa, the fallout from an unknown amount of customers’ compromised data is still being felt. To ensure your customers that you are doing the utmost to keep their financial data out of malicious hands, be prepared to answer questions about those companies that you do business with to handle your credit card processing.
Be sure that the provider that handles your credit card processing is audited annually for compliance with PCI DSS. Also, standard accounting practices should be verified as compliant with the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70, the federally mandated Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and any other applicable state or federal standards. You would, of course, be shooting yourself in the foot if your online payment gateway did not utilize 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer encryption.
Not all of your customers will be sophisticated enough to know they should look for these things, but you can lose the confidence of dozens of customers if even one person is not satisfied with your ability to communicate this information. To avoid unnecessary, and possibly costly, complications for your business, make sure that these standards are in place with your credit card processing providers, and that you can successfully educate wary customers about these measures.
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