In the late 90s, all the major card network companies aimed to come up with a solution to protect card data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The internet revolution was just beginning and the probability of card theft was increasing day by day. What followed was a number of independent (some would say scattered)<\/em> solutions. Visa came up with Cardholder Information Security Program, Mastercard had the SDP, and Amex had Data Security Operating Policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As one would imagine, this led to a lot of confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Different customers might have different cards. Was a merchant\/ payment aggregator<\/a> <\/mark><\/span>supposed to follow separate regulations? Was that even feasible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, in 2004, all the major card schemes teamed up to create the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). <\/strong>This information security standard helped secure card transactions by introducing twelve-step requirements for compliance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n