AIMS Achieves Global Compliance Recognition for Payment Security

KUALA LUMPUR, 15 December 2014 (Mon): The AIMS Group, Southeast Asia’s leading carrier-neutral data services provider, today shares its latest qualification in payment security by receiving the global *PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Version 2.0 recognition. This makes AIMS only the third data centre in Malaysia to receive the global compliance recognition for payment security.

*PCI DSS is the technical requirement framework for payment data security compliance that is recognised by global payment brands such as American Express, VISA Inc, Mastercard, Discover Financial Services and JCB International to ensure the safe handling of cardholder information.

Description: AIMS Group CEO, Chiew Kok Hin, the CEO of the AIMS Group shares that this highly coveted payment security qualification has long been in the works by the data centre, in consideration of the increasing trend of data breaches in the country.

PCI DSS compliance is crucial for managing risks, reducing losses and ensuring customer data remains safe and is a requirement for all merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit cardholder data. PCI DSS compliant businesses must adhere to vital security measures such as policies, security management, procedures, network architecture and software design.

He shares, “According to Bank Negara’s 2013 annual report, the volume of e-payment transactions comprising usage of payment cards, e-money and Internet banking totalled 1.9 billion transactions, valued at RM16.2 trillion. At the same time, credit card fraud was the most common form of payment fraud with total losses amounting to RM29.4 million, with almost 62 per cent of this amount being due to unauthorised Internet transactions.”

This shows that more needs to be done to prevent leaks occurring from the financial aspect of our digital economy.

“A sizeable number of data centre clients are made up of those from the financial and e-commerce industries and while AIMS does not directly manage consumers financial data, it is a huge concern to them. Hence to protect AIMS data centre clients we went a step deeper and made the decision to invest in efforts to adopt global standards in data security measures designed to protect cardholder data.”

So far, AIMS has invested close to RM1 million in fortifying the overall IT security of its data centre facilities.

“PCI DSS is not a one off initiative but part of a long term commitment to ensure that AIMS customers have even more faith in our data centre facilities, systems and processes. Data breaches are becoming more sophisticated by the day and AIMS is especially concerned about payment security as this is where data breaches are more common place,” he explains.

Expanding to Singapore

On its business plans, Chiew shares that AIMS Group has also set up operations in Singapore. “There was a demand from some of our existing customers for a site in Singapore and seeing the need, we have set up a site in Singapore. This speaks volumes of our reliability and credibility overseas as well,” he says.

AIMS, as the premier Malaysian carrier-neutral data centre provider, also operates data centres at its main data centre in central Kuala Lumpur as well as in Cyberjaya, Sabah, Penang, Johor and now in Singapore.

Author: Terry KS

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