PCI DSS 4.0 Compliance – A Catalyst for Progressive Consumer Payments Modernization
Friday, March 26, 2021
Posted by Ray Lockwood to Fraud Management, Consumer Payments, Payments and Industry Trends
Share this:
2021 marks the beginning of the implementation of the new PCI DSS standards, with the final version of PCI DSS v4.0 currently planned for completion in Q4 2021. The planning phase, which has been run collaboratively by the Security Standards Council with the global industry since 2019, has now come to an end and the time window for global financial institutions to begin implementing their solutions has begun. In short, if you haven’t started yet, you’re already behind the curve.
There is an 18-month transition period between the launch of the new v4.0 standards and the retirement of the old v3.2.1. But as any large financial institution knows, the modernization of a mission-critical payments engine is a wide-ranging project that impacts multiple legacy systems within the bank. The speed at which a project can be completed will really be limited by the existing legacy technology and infrastructure, particularly if it has been extensively customized.
Many legacy systems have now reached end of life—where they cannot support tactical or add-on changes to meet the new requirements—and their vendors won’t be releasing mandate supports. This means that alongside the regulatory timeline drivers, these legacy vendors are forcing banks into a migration project.
But, despite the challenges, this market event provides the catalyst that many banks need to kick-start their consumer payments modernization programs. And the positive news is that newer, more flexible payment platforms provide a progressive path to modernization rather than the “rip and replace” of old. These solutions, in combination with modern deployment options such as the cloud (public or private), create the ability for institutions to target and prioritize discrete services or workloads to migrate to new platforms against variable criteria, such as compliance deadlines or ROI. In this way, a large-scale project initiated by a compliance mandate can in fact become a revenue generator. By identifying milestones, including those that can be directly monetized, such as the launch of a new payments service, institutions evade the pitfalls of historical migrations that would get stuck in the quicksand of replicating all previous processes and customizations in the new attempt to replicate every customization on the new platform; essentially stripping out the value of the migration.
For those seeking to leverage PCI 4.0v1 as the catalyst for progressive consumer payments modernization, the focus should be on migrating services, not processes or customizations, and on launching net new value drivers in the new platform—all as part of an agile project approach that reaches ROI milestones along its pathway.
Find out how Erste Bank Hungary and Rabobank are successfully tackling modernization in their issuing business.
Related Blog Posts
Could Increased Fraud Make the Mobile Payments Boom a Revenue Bust for Merchants?
Mobile payments are fast becoming mainstream, with ACI merchant customers seeing 30 percent of all eCommerce transactions in 2020 being made on mobile devices. In the United States, adoption is higher, with 42 percent of eCommerce transactions in 2020 on mobile – that’s a year-on-year growth rate of 55 percent.
Building Resilience and Flexibility Through Multi-Acquiring
At one time, merchants saw payments simply as the cost of doing business. Today, however, payments are seen as a strategic battleground—one that can drive revenue and loyalty when done right. Against this backdrop, and coupled with the rise in digital payments, acquirers and banks must work harder than ever to provide the payment types, speed to market, cost point and reliability merchants are demanding.
Touchless Payments: A Major Opportunity for Grocers
The grocery shopping experience has changed significantly in recent years. What was once a simple, traditional trip to the store has now evolved into a variety of consumer journeys spanning multiple delivery channels. Online shopping for home delivery or in-store pickup has gained significant consumer adoption, along with in-store innovations such as self-checkouts and ‘scan and pay’.
Grocery Shoppers Show Omnivorous Appetite for Omni-Channel
Digital acceleration and the massive growth in eCommerce sales in 2020 have not gone unnoticed by those in the connected world. Largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, ACI Worldwide data analysis showed that global online sales in the general retail sector were up 209 percent in April and 81 percent in May (compared to the previous year), and overall eCommerce sales continued to show an uplift of more than 20 percent compared to a year earlier in November.
Merchants Don’t Need a Payments Gateway, They Need a Payments Hub
The term “payments gateway” over-simplifies what it takes to process a payment. The terminology comes from the early days of online payment processing, but has now entered the vernacular for all aspects of merchant payments, including online, mobile and in-store.
How to Recession-Proof Your Retail Business in 2021
2020 has been a challenging year for retailers; many were — understandably — unprepared to deal with the pandemic. With millions of people in the U.K. in lockdown, consumers and businesses have had to change the way they work and live, and the way they shop and pay.
Adding Fuel to the Fraud Fire
Payments fraud is a widespread and difficult issue in the fuel segment. Fuel dispensers are a common target for certain types of fraud – and fuel merchants often lack visibility into the level and impact of that fraud.
The Rise of “Invisible Payments” in Latin America
For retailers throughout LATAM (and the world), driving sales and loyalty depends on keeping up with top payment trends, which are invariably driven by consumer demands. “Invisible payments” is an emerging trend that is already paying benefits for a host of retailers — and it could be a game-changer for Latin America.
Agnosticity: Giving Fuel Merchants the Freedom and Flexibility to Innovate
The absolute minimum that customers demand from their transaction at the fuel stop is a fast, convenient and secure payments experience. But there is also room for fuel merchants to build loyalty and boost upselling by delivering more than just a good price on fuel and a fast payments process.
Could COVID-19 Be India’s Cashless Catalyst?
India’s push towards a digital economy has accelerated over the years, with a supportive regulatory environment, home-grown technologies and innovation around digital infrastructure improving “last mile” connectivity to the remote towns and rural areas of the country. While the “Digital India” drive has been consistent, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the true value of digitization for businesses and consumers alike. It is a watershed moment and has fast-tracked the pace of digital adoption, particularly for payments, which now plays a critical role in economic recovery.