Bakwena Platinum Corridor Concessionaire recently achieved a “Level One” Merchant Certification for the payment card industry, making it the first mag stripe compliant company in South Africa and setting the benchmark for managing IT security cyber threats, within the tolling industry.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.
The PCI DSS is administered and managed by the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC), an independent body created by the major payment card brands such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discovery and JCB, which are responsible for enforcing compliance.
CEO Graeme Blewitt says Bakwena embarked on the journey to implement a worldwide security standard. “To achieve Level One certification, we needed to meet requirements in 12 areas of technical and operational IT competency, which are designed to ensure businesses implement a secure level of protection to all systems that house credit card data.
“Achieving this international certification means we reviewed, upgraded and implemented all IT systems associated with the processing and transmitting of customer credit card data, ensuring it is now managed in a more secure manner. We completed the exercise in May 2017 and are now a leader in South Africa for PCI DSS 3.2 Mag stripe (Card Swipe) compliance,” he says.
Notably, this certification places Bakwena at the forefront of managing IT security cyber threats for its customers, which is now commonplace in today’s hi-tech environments.
Blewitt says Bakwena does not offer Pin Entry Devices (PEDs) for card payments because it is likely to result in a build-up of queues at the plazas. “We require fast and efficient systems that can process card payments for 250 vehicles per hour in all toll lanes along our route. This amounts to four transactions per minute per lane.
“Making sure we are PCI complaint is yet another way Bakwena strives to ease the experience of road users, ensuring their journeys are as seamless, safe and enjoyable as possible.”
