Avenues India became the first Indian payment gateway to achieve the new PCI DSS 1.1 Standards of Compliance.

In May 2008, Avenues once again successfully completed the PCI certification. This certification confirms Avenues position as one of the most secure payment gateways in the world. The PCI DSS 1.1 certification covers all of Avenues solutions which are currently live - CCAvenue India for INR processing, CCAvenue World for Multicurrency processing, ResAvenue: the reservation solution for the hospitality industry and EventAvenue: the registration and venue management solution for the MICE vertical. View Certificate

What is Payment Card Industry Compliance?

The PCI DSS version 1.1, a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, was developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc., to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis.

The PCI DSS is a multifaceted security standard that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. This comprehensive standard is intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data. The PCI standards are stringent standards of security that service providers must follow to store, process and transmit cardholder data.

Our successful completion of the PCI DSS 1.1 means that our merchants, hoteliers, event holders and their respective customers can now transact online using our solutions without worries of identity theft and security breaches.

About PCI
Consumers have enjoyed using credit and debit cards for many years.
However, sophisticated thieves have been able to extract credit and debit card information from unsecured databases and other means. This has resulted in a higher incidence of identity theft, a crime that affects merchant companies, financial institutions, e-commerce companies and individuals.
 
Because of these security breaches, the major credit card companies - American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa - decided to create regulations to help prevent theft of consumers' data. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards were created by MasterCard and agreed to in 2004 by the four major credit card companies. Each of the credit card companies has its own term for these standards. On June 30, 2005, the regulations took effect.
 
The American Express program is called Data Security Operating Policy (DSOP); the Discover program is called Discover Information Security and Compliance (DISC);The MasterCard program is called MasterCard Site Data Protection (SDP); and the Visa program is called Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP).

About PCI Security Standards Council:
In September of 2006, the five leading payment brands formed an independent council to manage the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International saw the need to secure payment account data in a globally consistent manner. The new council worked to develop a system that would be more accessible and efficient. As a result, the ongoing monitoring and development will benefit more than one billion payment card users.

The Goals of PCI Standards:

	Develop and maintain a global, industry-wide technical data security standard for the protection of accountholder account information;
	Reduce costs and lead times for Data Security Standard implementation and compliance by establishing common technical standards and audit procedures for use by all payment brands;
	Provide a list of globally available, qualified security solution providers via its Web site to help the industry achieve compliance;
	Lead training, education, and a streamlined process for certifying Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) and Approved Scanning Vendors (ASVs), providing a single source of approval recognized by all five founding members; and
	Provide a transparent forum in which all stakeholders can provide input into the ongoing development, enhancement and dissemination of data security standards.

About Avenues
Incorporated in the year 2001, Avenues is a zero-debt company, which has been profitable from its inception. Avenues is head quartered in Mumbai, India and has subsidiary companies and offices in USA, Singapore and China. Avenues has developed several innovative, cutting-edge ASP hosted solutions that are used by thousands of eMerchants globally. Beginning as a single product company that catered to the local market, Avenues has become a multi-product company that operates on a global scale. The Avenues support and development center is based in Mumbai, India. The total strength of the Avenues team is currently 125 persons spanning across all offices. Avenues has three Business Units namely– Avenues Commercial Services, Avenues Travel Industry Services and Avenues Community Related Services. www.Avenues.info.