Data security has become an ever increasing area of concern and focus in the payments industry. In 2003, Visa USA mandated processors, such as eboCom, to comply with the Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) to protect cardholder data and is the highest information security standard. MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB also announced their own individual compliancy programs. Ultimately, all the card brand requirements were incorporated into a single industry standard known as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). EboCom was among one of the first payment processors to embrace this requirement in 2003 and continues to recertify their PCI compliancy every year.