With over 257 billion card transactions for goods and services worldwide, the payment cards (credit or debit cards) serve as one of the most preferable modes of payment. In fact, many surveys show that over 70% people prefer card payments over cash. Payment Card - PCI DSS While alternate modes of payment are catching up (such as IBAN in Europe, UPI in India etc.), the card industry will continue to thrive for several years, on account of its worldwide acceptance, transaction success rate and ease of use. Of course, like all other electronic media, security is of paramount importance when it comes to payment cards. While there is a legal structure for protecting the interests of the card users, the underlying security (both infrastructure and application) is governed by PCI DSS compliance. So what is PCI DSS? It stands for Payment Cards Industry - Data Security Standards. Five different companies Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB International - each of them who alrea...