Payment card industry

The payment card industry (PCI) denotes the debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM, and POS cards and associated businesses.

The payment card industry consists of all the organizations which store, process and transmit cardholder data, most notably for debit cards and credit cards. The security standards are developed by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council which develops the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards used throughout the industry. Individual card brands establish compliance requirements that are used by service providers and have their own compliance programs. Major card brands include American Express, Discover Financial Services, China UnionPay, Japan Credit Bureau, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International. Most companies use member banks that connect and accept transactions from the card brands. Not all card brands use member banks, like American Express, these instead act as their own bank.

As of 2014, the United States uses a magnetic stripe on a card to process transactions and its security relies on the holder's signature and visual inspection of the card to check for features such as hologram. This system will be outmoded and replaced by EMV in 2015. EMV is a global standard for inter-operation of integrated circuit cards (IC cards or "chip cards") and IC card capable point of sale (POS) terminals and automated teller machines (ATMs), for authenticating credit and debit card transactions. It has enhanced security features, but is still susceptible to fraud.

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