How Does PCI Compliance Improve Business Functionality?
When it comes to improving business functionality, one of the first areas of your organization that you need to review is PCI compliance.
No doubt about it, achieving PCI compliance takes a lot of work and effort, and beyond that, maintaining PCI compliance can translate into a variety of problems if you’re not careful. This is why it’s generally best to outsource PCI compliance-related tasks and activities.
What Is PCI Compliance?
Being PCI compliant means that your business operates according to a set of worldwide protection standards when processing debit, credit, and other forms of digital currency transactions. If your company stores, processes, or transmits any type of payment card data, then you are required to maintain PCI compliance. For e-commerce businesses that accept credit cards online, it’s just as vital to achieve PCI compliance and to maintain it.
What Are 5 Benefits of Being PCI Compliant?
As you can imagine, the PCI compliance standards set into place that you must uphold were created by financial and tech experts with the intention being to protect both your business and consumers when conducting digital financial transactions. By achieving PCI compliance, your company can operate with a competitive edge thanks to the following benefits:
Lower risk of data and security breaches
Keeping your company’s physical doors locked at night and equipping the business space with security cameras are excellent ways to enhance business growth, but they only go so far in keeping you safe. A thief doesn’t have to break into a physical store location to steal your company’s financial data and business information. By hacking any network synced to your company, it becomes possible for hackers to hack their way into your most valuable data. With PCI compliance, though, you get to take advantage of virtual door locks on all of your networks. You can tap into access control features, user permission status updates, and so much more. This means you get to take full control of your company’s data and financial information while lowering the risk of data and security breaches.
Greater peace of mind
Imagine the peace of mind you’ll have as you operate on a daily basis without having to worry about hackers and thieves stealing your company’s most valuable data. Being PCI compliant allows you to focus your attention on other core business matters, easily allowing you to refine your business practices that reduce overhead costs and boost profit margins.
Increase in customer confidence
You can use the advantage of being PCI compliant for marketing purposes by letting customers and other consumers know that their business with your brand stays between the two of you and doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. This is particularly a benefit for brands that sell and distribute personal products, like medicines for certain illnesses.
Better budget management
By being PCI compliant, you reduce the chance of a data breach taking place, and this should always be a primary goal for any company. Data breaches can be extremely expensive. Take a look at a few examples of potential data breach expenses you may have to endure if your company’s data is hacked by hackers:
- Forensic investigation: $12,000–$100,000
- On-site QSA assessments following the breach: $20,000–$100,000
- Merchant processor compromise fine: $5,000–$50,000
- Security updates: $15,000+
- Card brand compromise fees: $5,000–$500,000
- Breach notification costs: $1,000+
- Lawyer fees: $5,000+
The Takeaway
As you can see, there’s a lot of time and money to lose if you run into problems with data breaches. The number one way to avoid this is to achieve and maintain PCI compliance. If you don’t have an internal team with expertise in PCI compliance, then it’s usually best to outsource all PCI compliance-related tasks to improve the effectiveness of the new processes you put into place. For more information on how to get started with PCI compliance, contact GenIX today.
