The Acquirer is the entity that handles the credit card transaction for the merchant. This is probably your bank, or an Independent Service Organization (ISO). If an ISO the transaction will ultimately be handled by an Acquiring bank. It is this bank that will request the merchant to comply with the PCI Standards and the Audit procedure.

The PCI SSC has divided merchants into four categories called “Levels”. In general each card brand establishes the Level designation based on transaction volumes. However, other criteria may be used and the Level of any particular merchant is established at the sole discretion of the Card Brand. Your acquiring bank will inform you of your merchant level. Regardless of your designated Level Intersec Worldwide can assist you with all of your PCI compliance needs and guide you through the complex audit process. Following are the volumes that Visa has established for its merchant levels. MasterCard and Discover volumes are very similar and AmEx and JCB are lower.

• Level 1 – Merchants processing over 6 million Visa transactions per year.
• Level 2 – Merchants processing 1 million to 6 million Visa transactions per year.
• Level 3 – Merchants processing 20,000 to 1 million Visa transactions per year.
• Level 4 – Merchants processing less than 20,000 Visa transactions per year.