What is PA-DSS and How Does It Affect Your Customers?

In the Internet era, the risk of data theft in an enterprise environment is extremely high. The resulting impact on consumers can be immense. Responding to growing concerns over data security breaches and theft of credit card information, Visa and the Payment Card Industry have developed two security standards;

• PA-DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standards) to govern credit card application software developers
• PCI (Payment Card Industry) Security Standards to ensure merchants who accept credit cards are providing adequate security safeguards to protect sensitive credit card information.

The PCI Security Council mandates that any merchant accepting credit cards must be PCI compliant. What this means is that merchants’ IT infrastructure must be secured and verified. If credit card information is stored, it must be encrypted with advanced algorithms and protected with dual split control and an access audit trail must be provided. In addition, if the merchant uses credit card software, the application must be PA-DSS certified.

In recent years, Visa announced a long-range, multi-phase plan to enforce compliance of these security standards. The Phase V mandate will take effect on July 1, 2010. This mandate states that financial institutions must ensure that their merchants use PA-DSS certified credit card payment applications and comply with PCI security requirements. Failure to do this may result in a hefty fine to both merchant and financial institution should a data security breach occur.

How Can FMT Consultants and Nodus Help?

Being the leader in electronic payment for Microsoft Dynamics market, Nodus was the first to have an integrated credit card payment solution for Dynamics GP certified and approved by Visa. Recognizing that these security standards are specialized and not generally well understood by the MBS community at large, FMT Consultants and Nodus encourage you to take advantage of our domain expertise and give us a call if you are looking for a new way to process credit cards.

For any questions or concerns, please contact FMT Consultants at 760-930-6400.