The decision comes as both Heartland and RBS WorldPay have admitted to security breaches which allowed fraudsters to steal large amounts of sensitive customer information. Thus, payroll services provider Heartland, which processed transactions for over than 250,000 business locations in the US adding up around 100 million transactions per month, reported the breach in early 2009. RBS WorldPay also admitted a security breach which occurred in late 2008 and left up to 1.5 million payroll and gift card holders in the US at risk of fraud, exposing an additional 1.1 million social security records.
Visa’s decision to revoke Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance for Heartland and RBS WorldPay means that retailers which currently work with the two companies have no choice but to temporarily suspend their contracts with the payment processors. This occurs as the law demands merchants to use PCI compliant service providers, SCMagazineUS.com reports. In a statement, Visa has declared that the two companies are working on revalidating their PCI DSS compliance. Heartland representatives are indicating that the company is planning to be recertified as PCI DSS compliant by May 2009, while RBS stated that it is planning to reclaim its certification by April 2008.
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