Shemer Katz, vice president, product and marketing, SafeCharge, talks to iNTERGAMINGi about the value online merchants find in outsourcing PCI compliance
ALL online merchants who process, transmit or store cards must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard - a demanding set of requirements for the protection of payment data.
Outsourcing PCI compliance to third-party payment providers has become an attractive option for merchants seeking to minimise the scope of their compliance efforts. In the wake of his company’s successful relationship with Gala Coral, SafeCharge’s Shemer Katz talks to iNTERGAMINGi about the success merchants can achieve by outsourcing their PCI compliance to a trusted partner.
iNTERGAMINGi: So what has driven this recent shift to outsourcing PCI compliance?
SK: “The key ingredient in merchants’ decision making has been the overwhelming complexity of compliance. Working on compliance means time spent away from profitable activities. In addition, a recent Gartner Research analysis shows that the cost of the assessment and implementation of in-house Level 1 PCI-related work is $693,000 per year.
“As such, a quick glance at return on investment is enough to understand why many merchants have begun to look for alternatives.”
So why now?
“Previously, the predominant view was that control over payment data was a key asset worth investing in. With time and experience, however, the monetary value of control over payment data has proved to be zero.
“And having to fend off potential outside attempts at obtaining sensitive payment data, including well organised fraud attacks, has proved to cost even more time and effort than compliance itself, not to mention the legal repercussions in case of failure.”
Read the full article in the latest issue of iNTERGAMINGi.
