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Visa says PCI compliance with large merchants is high, smaller merchants lag

September 14, 2009

Digital Transactions reportsthat large U.S. merchants are moving toward 100-percent compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, but compliance among small card acceptors continues to lag.

How far behind those smaller merchants are is unclear, however, since Visa Inc. does not provide compliance statistics for smaller, Level 4, merchants — those that submit fewer than 1 million Visa transactions annually. Though Level 4 merchants make up 99 percent of Visa's U.S. merchant base, they only account for about 32 percent of Visa's U.S. transaction volume.

Visa says PCI compliance among Level 4 merchants is "moderate" among merchants with standalone payment terminals, and "lower among merchants using integrated payment applications."

Meanwhile, PCI compliance among Level 1 and Level 2 card acceptors, the largest merchants, is 95 percent and 93 percent, respectively. Level 1 merchants, which total 352, generate more than 6 million Visa transactions annually; Visa's 895 Level 2 merchants provide Visa with between 1 million and 6 million transactions annually. Collectively, Level 1 and Level 2 merchants account for 63 percent of Visa transactions.