By Adam Turteltaub

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is driven by a set of rules that set a standard of security for any entity that takes, stores or processes credit card data. Any time you or I make a credit card purchase, we rely on PCI compliance by all involved to keep our information safe.

Now, the standard is evolving to PCI 4.0, explains Mark Schreiber, Senior Counsel at McDermott Will & Emery. PCI 4.0 is far more robust and clarifies the misunderstandings in the previous standard. It also imposes more than 50 new obligations.

Most notable of the changes is the new emphasis on third parties and the need to monitor them. Now, merchants must maintain lists and descriptions of all third-party providers, have written agreements with them that accounts for security standards and includes a process for due diligence before engaging with them.

Central to the process is a responsibility matrix, which outlines which party is responsible for each aspect of credit card security.

Perhaps needless to say, this is not likely to be a quick process. Also likely to be time consuming is the mandatary self-assessment questionnaire.

Listen in to learn all that PCI 4.0 requires and to hear an important warning: just because you outsource your credit card processing, doesn’t mean you outsource the risk.