The Payment Card Industry (PCI) requires payment processors and merchants to meet certain Data Security Standards in order to protect consumers as well as merchants and payment processors. This leads to PCI Compliance, which you need to be familiar with if your business involves card payment processing. The state regulates PCI compliance, and merchant account providers can also set standards for data security, so it is important to be familiar with compliance standards. One of the biggest reasons for doing so is avoiding additional fees.
PCI compliance is important for data security, but it is also important for you the business owner for many reasons. Here at Moolah, we provide some of the best credit card processing for small businesses, and through our partnership with Authorize.net, provide free PCI compliance services. PCI compliance is important because PCI non-compliance fees can be charged when you or a payment processor don’t meet PCI compliance standards, which could cost you up to $100,000 a month. One quick and simple way to determine if you meet PCI compliance standards, you can fill out a Self-Assessment Questionnaire that will tell you if you are out of compliance. If you are, then it is important to get into compliance on your own or find a payment processor that is, because paying PCI non-compliance fees will not only hurt your budget but be fruitless, because it will not go toward you getting back into compliance.
Sometimes PCI compliance fees are passed on from the payment processor to the merchant, so it may benefit you to look for these types of fees when choosing your payment processing option. It is very likely that you will encounter a payment processor that will charge PCI compliance fees. Though some PCI compliance fees come with extras, not all will, so it is important to ask the payment processor you are thinking of working with about them to determine what you’re getting for your money.
Though not all payment processors charge PCI compliance fees, including Moolah, there are reasons many do. Some payment processors will run security scans for you, which could save you some work because these are required to be done by merchants at least quarterly. Some processors will provide liability insurance for data breaches. Some processors may also provide ongoing consulting for PCI compliance issues, and issues that come up, including changes to PCI compliance standards.
Payment processors get to determine their own fees for PCI compliance. These fees are calculated by determining what their fees are and if these fees include PCI compliance or not. If not, then processors will determine what they would like to add to their existing fees in order to account for compliance. There are four ways these fees may be determined: No fee without services, fee without services, fee with services, or no fee with services. The ideal payment processor will provide PCI compliance services without charging extra fees. Here at Moolah, we use Authorize.net, which provides PCI compliance help without charging additional fees. That is one of the many reasons that Moolah provides some of the best credit card processing for small businesses.