| Achieving PCI Compliance in Complex Payment Networks
Today, all credit card merchants, service providers and retailers who process, store and transmit cardholder data have a fiduciary responsibility to protect that data and must comply with a diverse range of regulations and industry mandates. Payment networks are particularly at risk from computer attacks and fraud, and the more data collected, the more dangerous the situation becomes. Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is just one of the regulatory standards along with Sarbanes-Oxley, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and HIPAA. Not complying results in fines, legal exposure, or worse. But this is easier said than done. Immense volumes of log data are traversing payment networks, necessitating more efficient ways of managing, storing and searching through log data. For example, a typical retailer generates hundreds of thousands of log messages per day amounting to many terabytes per year.
Howard Wolfson
Credit card regime abusive,discriminatory – GRTU
The Chamber of General Retailers and Traders yesterday described the charges and taxes associated with credit card usage in Malta as abusive and, in many cases, discriminatory.
The GRTU yesterday called on the authorities to remove the annual tax paid by holders of credit cards and to reduce the interchange charges paid by retailers, which has been as much as halved, following interventions by governments in other countries.
The controversy, which has been ongoing at European and international level for years now, stems from the charges paid by the retailing community in order to offer the service to consumers and, in Maltas case, the annual taxes paid by credit card holders.
Countries such the UK, Poland and the Netherlands in Europe, as well as the United States, Australia and New Zealand, have investigated, ruled against and, in some cases, imposed multi-million euro fines on banks and credit card companies for anti-competitive behaviour.
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