July 20, 2009 Broken Arrow, OK - Horizon Business Concepts, a leader in aviation business management software development, announced today their popular TotalFBO product is the first industry business management software program to become compliant under the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Council’s new industry security standards for processing credit cards.
The announcement comes as major oil companies begin enforcing deadlines over the next several months on Fixed Base Operations (FBOs) and other service providers to cease use of non-PCI compliant software and hardware.
For the more than 1,000 aviation users and subscribers who rely on TotalFBO to manage their internal operations including accounting, this means they can process customer credit cards with confidence, knowing their systems are compliant with Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) certification.
“Any aviation service company who accepts credit cards and does anything other than swipe the card through a Verifone machine, has a challenge to demonstrate they are PCI compliant,” said George Lehmann, Vice President of Horizon Business Concepts. “The aviation industry really has their hands full to educate the masses as to the need and importance of becoming PCI compliant.”
According to Lehmann, the major credit card companies, including American Express, Visa, Mastercard and Discover, began working together in 2004 to create a greater level of consumer credit card protection by ensuring merchants meet minimum standards for processing, storing and transmitting cardholder data. With the new standards now in place, merchants can no longer capture, transmit or store critical customer credit card data, including the entire credit card number, unless strict encryption and operations guidelines are followed using certified software. Non-compliant companies who maintain a relationship with a branded card, either directly or through an acquirer such as a major oil company, risk losing their ability to process credit card payments and being audited and/or fined.
In an effort to help educate the industry, Horizon will conduct an in-depth seminar on PCI compliance as part of their annual TotalFBO Users Conference scheduled for September 17 and 18 in Kansas City, MO. Visit www.totalfbo.comfor more information.About Horizon Business Concepts and TotalFBO
Horizon Business Concepts was founded in 1988 in Broken Arrow, OK as a software development company with a specific focus on the aviation. The main product is TotalFBO which is the leading aviation integrated accounting and business management software for the PC platform. Over the years, TotalFBO has evolved and is now available in the new powerful Version 6. For more information, call 918-355-3469 or go to www.totalfbo.com.
