The push for PCI compliance is a serious one for merchants, service providers, and colocation facilities, and there are several deadlines that are important to remember. The most recent is right on the doorstep: July 2010. It is a software mandate issued by Visa that merchants have to switch to approved software for processing credit card transactions, and countless merchants are scrambling to make the cutoff date. Small businesses especially are at risk of being hammered by the penalties for noncompliance.

Most of the dates for compliance have passed, some are scheduled out as far as June 2011; it all depends on which credit card industry applies to you (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and/or American Express), and if you are a merchant or a service provider. This website had some pretty helpful information in all of those areas.

NetHosting is in a good position; its data center is both PCI Compliant and SAS 70 certified, which offers a stable foundation for merchants who also need to meet those requirements. As deadlines pass and more draw near, hosting in a PCI certified data center is a great way for a merchant to achieve it’s own certifications, and is in fact the only way, as part of PCI compliance requires that a merchant stores and processes its data in a certified facility.