Aria: Providing Cheaper PCI Compliance for Payment Processors

aria logoAchieving Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance for online transactions is an expensive and timely endeavor; routinely costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and spanning several quarters in time. According to Gartner, PCI compliance will cost up to an average of $2.7 million among Level 1 merchants and $267,000 among Level 2 merchants. Further, Visa and Mastercard will be imposing new PCI requirements upon online merchants, which will include more frequent on and off site security reviews, beginning in 2010; thus forcing more companies to upgrade their systems to meet compliance standards.

Demand billing and recurring subscription management company, Aria, offers a solution built to manage PCI compliance for companies. Instead of companies investing in the necessary infrastructure to meet the compliance standards themselves–which includes employee background checks, installation of security cameras on-premise, and third party audits of your network–they can have Aria handle the entire online transactions process, from start to finish, taking advantage of their level 1 (the highest and most rigorous) compliance level, thus mitigating costs which would be incurred had a company tried to become compliant.

By taking advantage of Aria’s suite of payment processors, which include the likes of Authorize.net, Chase Paymentech, Cybersource, PayPal, TransFirst, and RBS Worldpay, customers are able to shop around and find a solution which suits their needs. This versatility adds an extra layer of security and functionality. Conversely, if a company wishes to make themselves PCI compliant, they can only use one payment processor, severely limiting their options.

Aria promises to have their solutions “deployed in 30 days or less for $30,000,” but founder and CEO Ed Sullivan says that many times they are able to deliver compliance even sooner. The services offered by Aria are intended for businesses involved in card-not-present transactions and their customer base includes those who are in the cloud, staff, telecommunications, media, and online gaming sectors.

Aria is based in Philadelphia and has a sales and marketing office in San Mateo. A complete list of the payment processors which Aria is affiliated with can be found here.