Paris is relaxing
April 27th, 2007 Posted in Europe, Merchant, PCI DSS
I left the apartment we are staying at and literally walked one block to the Pompidou (museum of modern art). I sat in the shade right outside and enjoyed some smacks while completing paperwork. It was a great time and the best place I have found to work (that is until I visit Rob Newby in Barcelona.)
It is slowly sinking in the affect SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) will have on the PCI DSS market. In a post that Rob mentioned in March (PCI awareness month) he hinted at something the card associations have long been well aware of in Europe. The idea being that in 2008 countries will start co-branding their bank cards with one or more of the card association logos. This may result in higher costs to merchants (uncertain really), but the larger impact will be on the number of Level 1-2 merchants and service providers.
QSA companies in the US should be working now more than ever to solidify their European presence because the market is about to explode and those companies who are prepared will have first picks of clients.
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2 Responses to “Paris is relaxing”
By Rob Newby on Apr 27, 2007
Yes indeed. This very much echoes what we were talking about yesterday here: http://pcianswers.com/2007/04/26/out-and-about-in-europe/
I would be very interested to hear the views of the card companies on this. It seems to me that in about 6-9 months we are going to have a whole lot of uncompliant merchants facing a very real threat of being fined by one or more of the card companies, plus the threat of disclosure and breach becoming very real.
I’ve been telling people this since 2000, so whereas I want to be considered a visionary, I may just seem like the boy who cried wolf.
By Michael Dahn on Apr 27, 2007
Perhaps you were just ahead of your time. Sometimes things are just like this.
I do agree that shortly there will be merchants with an obligation they did not know they had before. Acquirers and card associations should be working on a massive education campaign right now to inform them. Then again, PCI DSS has been around for a long time.