(Left-right): Webinar Chair and Director of More Fire PR Ltd, Mark Ferguson; Tracey Long, Paul Brennecker, and Connie G. Penn.

The complex topic of PCI compliance for hotels and the myths surrounding this important topic have been analysed and explained by a panel of industry experts during a live webinar tuned into by hundreds of hoteliers across the UK.

Online booking and hospitality management experts, Welcome Systems Ltd, hosted the ‘What hoteliers need to know about PCI compliance’ webinar and Q&A to address the often thorny subject of processing card payments and managing customer data.

Key comments during the event included:

Tracey Long – Head of the PCI DSS compliance team at Worldpay and a specialist in payment security:

“Everybody has to be PCI compliant. It doesn’t matter if you take one transaction a year, or millions of transactions. However, the smaller you are, the easier it is for you.

“PCI is all about keeping the merchant and their customers’ card data safe. So actually it’s to make business easier for you. It’s about making sure that all of your systems are up-to-date, and that the way you take payments and process them adheres to the PCI standard.”

Connie G. Penn MIBC – Managing Director at Kilrush Consultancy Ltd and an expert in payment card processing:

“You have to be PCI complaint if you accept cards, but I often find that organisations are storing data they don’t actually need. If you don’t need it, don’t store it. There are some bad habits, particularly in this industry.”

Paul Brenneker CISM – a fully qualified PCI quality assessor with Security Risk Management Ltd:

“There are some low cost solutions for securing data. You’ve got to weigh up the cost of doing it properly, versus things going wrong. If there’s a data breach, and you’re trusted to maintain it, that’s a big problem. You’ll be held liable.”

John Jones, Managing Director of Welcome Systems Ltd, added:

“We wanted to provide clarity on PCI compliance and based on feedback we’ve received this event was a great success.

“There is a still lot of confusion about PCI regulations. Our job is to help hospitality businesses do away with this complexity and leave them free to get on with running successful hotels.

Click HERE to read a full transcript of the ‘What hoteliers need to know about PCI compliance’ Webinar