L1 Merchants - 30 September 2007

L2 Merchants - 31 December 2007

Failure to achieve compliance results in up to $25,000 fine every month and may also charge higher commission rates for merchants. Please note that VISA does not deal with any merchant directly. Instead it deals with acquirers (ie: banks handling merchant payments) and it is only the job of acquirers to enforce these standards on its merchants. The fines are charged by VISA to merchants through acquirers.

The deadlines for achieving compliance in Europe are a few months after US and Asia is even later. The Europeans, unlike Americans are kind of ahead in credit card protection at the point-of-sale merchants due to Chip-Pin architecture. Secondly, credit card fraud in Asia is much lesser for cards data stolen inside the same countries. But in any case, the standards will be enforced.