It seems that we ALL have to become PCI compliant in order to continue taking payments via the web. So the DWF’s official merchant account provider, Photography Merchant Systems, has provided an explanation:

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCIDSS) is a set of regulations that were implemented detailing security requirements for merchants and merchant service providers regarding the storing, processing and transmission of cardholder data. The entire transaction processing industry has incurred significant expenses due to the implementation of these regulations. To offset some of these expenses, it has become common practice for processors to charge a fee to their merchants. Whether you are a wedding photographer, restaurant, or any other retail or online business, you must make sure you are PCI compliant.

It is important to realize that PCI related fees are being charged all around the industry. At the present time the overwhelming majority of the industry is assessing annual fees from $79 to $149 or more. This includes almost all of the Top 10 acquirers that represent the vast majority of the merchants in the USA. It is regrettable that PCI fees are being universally adopted throughout the industry but clearly the expenses of security and compliance are a growing reality. The latest security breach at Heartland Payments and RBS Lynk only amplify the need for extensive security and controls around the payments industry.

It is especially important to make sure as wedding photographers that your website is secure, especially if you are running your transactions online.  Many photographers have chosen to go with a solution like authorize.net. When transactions are being run, please keep in mind that there is never a situation where you can write down or store customers credit card information without it being encrypted.  If you do have any of this information, it must be deleted.

As wedding photographers, in many cases you will run high dollar transactions.  This makes it especially important that all transactions run are secure and any time you can swipe a credit card as opposed to keying in or having the transaction run online would make the transaction safer.In many cases, this is not possible, so make sure that all information is secure.

All processors are all forced to undergo annual audits and maintain certain security levels to the satisfaction of our member bank, processors, Visa, MasterCard and various other debit and non-bankcard institutions. At this time, United Bankcard is not charging these fees to any new clients who sign up.  Until Visa and Matercard come up with the new specifications and audits, there will be no fees incurred to merchants.

Here are a couple of websites to go to.

• https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org
• www.visa.com/cisp

Who is your merchant account provider?  If you’re not a DWF Pro member, chances are you’re paying too much for processing.  The DWF has partnered with Photography Merchant Systems to provide the lowest rates in the industry to DWF Pro members.  Not a DWF Pro?  Grab a free trial here.