MasterCard vs. Visa: Dueling Compliance Philosphies

MasterCard vs. Visa: Dueling Compliance Philosophies

Written by David Taylor

August 18th, 2009

Columnist David Taylor is the Founder of the PCI Knowledge Base and former E-Commerce and Security analyst with Gartner.





People don’t seem to “get” MasterCard. For most of the last 4 years,
MasterCard has been criticized for their apparent willingness to let
Visa play the “bad guy” who issues fines to acquiring banks (and,
through them, to merchants), who extends the PCI standards to
application vendors (through PABP, now PA-DSS) and who generally takes
the heat for PCI.



Now MasterCard is taking what can only be called a “get tough” policy,
issuing larger fines and, most significantly, forcing both Level 1 and
Level 2 merchants to use assessors rather than take on the task of
self-assessment. But still, merchants, banks, processors and service
providers aren’t happy with MasterCard. They just can’t seem to get a
break. After numerous conversations with companies on the receiving end
of MasterCard’s “get tough” efforts, I think there are some
philosophical issues that need to be highlighted...



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