Virtual College facilitates PCI compliance with new payment data protection e-learning course

E-learning provider, Virtual College, has released a new compliance course which aims to educate and protect businesses from the devastation of payment security breaches.

Payment security e-learning compatible with mobile devices.

With a reported 33% increase in the theft of sensitive and confidential data since 2012, safeguarding transactions has become critically important.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that any organisation that accepts payment maintains a secure environment for that sensitive information.

Although PCI DSS compliance is a legal requirement, merchants’ staff are often not effectively educated or made aware of the PCI standards. As a result, many data breaches are down to simple human error and can be costly and embarrassing for businesses.

In response to this, Virtual College have released Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard - a new highly interactive e-learning course which explains payment card security in simple terms that staff will find relevant and extremely useful. It is an essential tool to any business either planning their PCI DSS compliance or wanting to streamline their transition to the new V.3 standard which comes into effect 1st January 2015. The new standard will help organisations focus on payment security by introducing more flexibility, an increased focus on education and awareness, and emphasis on security as a shared responsibility.

Hannah Brindle, Director of Virtual College’s Business Division, commented: "We identified a serious problem that affects businesses in almost every sector of the economy. Our online training solution is both cost effective and easy to implement and covers the responsibilities of front line staff in ensuring safe payment transactions. The content is thorough and engaging and has been developed to enhance learner retention."

"One of the simplest ways to avoid fraud is to ensure frontline staff understand how they should protect cardholder information and the consequences to a business of not doing so. Addressing PCI compliance is about good business and doing right by your customers and ultimately avoiding fines!"