BROKEN ARROW. OK — Horizon Business Concepts announces that its 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.
Users and subscribers who rely on TotalFBO to manage their internal operations including accounting can now process customer credit cards while 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," says 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 Sept. 17 and 18 in Kansas City, MO.
For more information visit www.totalfbo.com.
