Visa Adds New Level 4 PCI Requirement, As The PF Attractiveness Gets A Lot Stronger

In a late holiday gift for PFs everywhere, Visa has upped the requirements for PCI Level 4 (small businesses) merchants. Specifically, as the end of January 2017, those small merchants "must use only Payment Card Industry (PCI)-certified Qualified Integrators and Reseller (QIR) professionals for point-of-sale (POS) application and terminal installation and integration."

Although few would argue that using trained and approved vendors to do any POS work is not a good idea, merchants are already feeling that the burdens of getting and staying PCI compliant are too high. Given a PF's willingness to take on all of the PCI aggravation, that offer just got more attractive to Level 4s.