TORONTO — As of March 1, IATA-accredited travel agents will need to comply with the IATA Resolution for PCI DSS Compliance.

According to IATA, PCI DSS compliance will be a mandatory condition to obtain and retain accreditation as an IATA Accredited Agent in all its Accredited locations under the Passenger Sales Agency Rules in Resolution 818g.

Non-compliance with PCI DSS security standards could result in two instances of irregularity being recorded against your agency.

This mandatory requirement is to protect confidential payment card information against theft. Airlines have demanded that IATA support their own internal compliance project by making the BSP card sales channel PCI DSS compliant.

To support this mandatory requirement, ACTA has a PCI Compliance toolkit (available in both English and French) that offers ACTA members the resources and tools required to become PCI compliant.

An important element of the tool kit is the online wizard (Accel-PCI), which was created in partnership with Accel-PCI, a Canadian-owned company. The online wizard is designed to help agencies understand the PCI DSS requirements specific to their business type, and easily apply it to their payment card transaction environment.

Accel-PCI’s customized tool includes a check-off format to indicate the requirements that have already been completed.

PCI DSS Compliance applies to any organization (IATA appointed, TIDS or non-IATA), regardless of size or number of transactions, that accepts, transmits or stores any cardholder data.

In an effort to assist the travel industry at large, ACTA is offering a 20% discount on the Accel-PCI tool for members. Plus, at the same time, it has secured a non-ACTA member savings of 5%.

Access the PCI toolkit at acta.ca/PCI. The exclusive log in password for ACTA members is in the members only section of the ACTA website.

For non-members, visit www.accel-pci.com and enter code TRAVEL1802PCI.