INVITATION TO PAYMENT CARD INDUSTRY DATA SECURITY STANDARDS (PCI DSS) COMPLIANCE ROUNDTABLE

On February 17, 2011, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular to all Deposit Money Banks (DMBS) and Acquirers that non compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCIDSS) will attract a weekly fine of N50, 000 until compliance is achieved.

The PCI DSS is the security benchmark set by Card Vendors to mitigate security risks and protect payment card data from attacks. The PCI Security Standards Council was formed by the majority payment card brands: American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide & Visa Inc. to amongst other things, offers robust and comprehensive standards and supporting materials to enhance payment card data security including the framework of specifications, tools, measurements and support resources to help organizations ensure the safe handling of cardholder information at every step and provides an actionable framework for developing a robust payment card data security process -- including prevention, detection and appropriate reaction to security incidents.

PCI DSS Compliance program is indeed a massive task….there are MANY bases to cover and the success to a large extent will depend on the management buy-in with board support, budget and available technical resource etc.

To ensure that every bank CEO and their merchants know what are required to achieve a successful compliance project as defined by PCI Council, PBCL in conjunction with Trustwave USA is presenting Simplifying PCI DSS Compliance Roundtable on May 18, 2011 at the Atlantic Hall, Best Western The Island Hotel, 1228, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island Lagos from 1100hrs to 1300hrs.

The Roundtable is designed to share high level tips that will help every bank and their merchants to achieve compliance within a reasonable time frame and budget. Participants will learn how to reduce cost of compliance, required resources, benefits and consequences of non-compliance, pitfalls to avoid, how to prepare for compliance, roles of management/boards in compliances and lots more.