PCI: Risks of Non-Compliance
As an independent hotelier, what are some of the risks associated with choosing not to comply with PCI standards?
One of the risks is brand damage – a data breach will likely have a negative impact on your property’s reputation and erode the confidence of your customer base. This can obviously effect revenue and profits over the long term.
The most notable risk is the direct financial penalty. Each credit card company has its own set of fines and penalties – each of which is designed to be very costly to your business.
In addition to the risk of direct fines from credit card brands like Visa, there is also the possibility of receiving financial levies from payment processors or merchant banks – these organization can also be fined by card associations and have the authority to pass fines along to individual hotels that are deemed responsible for any data breaches that occur.
What is the Cost?
Some figures are astounding – Visa fines can be as high as $100,000 per month and up to $500,000 per data breach. The total cost of correcting a credit card data security breach is estimated to be between $90-$300 per card.
In the most severe cases, security infractions can result in your hotel having its ability to process credit card payments completely revoked or lead to law suits from the various affected parties.
For a different perspective on PCI and some of the risks associated with non-compliance, check out this short video (12 min). The video focuses more on the retail sector and POS systems but the information is very relevant to hoteliers.
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