Visa plans to institute 10 security rules for transactions conducted over the Internet by its 21,000 member financial institutions and their merchant partners.
The rules, to be spelled out in detail in a few weeks, are expected to be rolled out over the next year, according to a news report.
Visa cited boosting consumer confidence online and electronic fraud as the catalyst for instituting the rules. It also said that the rules were an attempt to head off new government regulatory action.
The report said that enforcement could involve fines, restricting the dollar amount of sales that individual merchants could process through the network or terminating their VISA membership.
The new requirements will include a firewall, updating security systems, encrypting stored accessible data and data sent across networks and using and regularly updating anti-virus software.
Of the total VISA U.S.A. card volume of $724 billion in 1999, about 2% involved online purchases. VISA projects this will jump to 10% by 2003, the company said.
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