Web Loyalty First To Achieve Compliance With Most Recent Payment Card Industry Data Standards

LONDON, 2 December -- Webloyalty (www.webloyalty.co.uk), a leading provider of incremental revenue for online businesses, today announced its payment application systems have achieved compliance with the latest Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) version 1.2. The compliance rating puts Webloyalty in an elite category for securing and protecting consumers’ financial information. These most recent PCI standards were introduced on October 1, 2008.

Webloyalty’s systems have been thoroughly tested and audited by VeriSign, which acts as a neutral third party providing a system of checks and balances to ensure payment application systems are private and secure. VeriSign is the leader in this industry.

“We are pleased to have worked closely with Webloyalty on PCI DSS assessments over the past 4 years, including providing support for this latest compliance achievement. As a provider of comprehensive PCI DSS services covering compliance, remediation and program management, we work with many merchants and service providers. Webloyalty is the first of our clients to become PCI DSS 1.2 compliant,” said Branden Williams, Director, PCI Practice, VeriSign (www.verisign.com).

The PCI Security Standards Council was formed by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. International to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures. The DSS is a set of comprehensive requirements intended to help organisations proactively protect customer data. It includes measures for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective areas.

“Webloyalty places a premium on keeping our members’ financial data private and secure. We take the annual assessments seriously and devote time, money and resources into ensuring our technological infrastructure is the best it can be,” said Rick Fernandes, CEO and founder, Webloyalty.

With identity theft and lost consumer data being an issue in current times, this early PCI DSS compliance means Webloyalty is at the forefront of consumer data security.

Starting January 1, 2009, all merchants wanting to process transactions with American Express, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard or Visa credit or debit cards will have to comply with the new standard.