CSR™, the leading provider of award-winning data compliance solutions and expert business services that helps organizations turn compliance into revenue, announced today that Director of Consulting Services Linda Grimm will speak to 500 attendees of the NorthEast Acquirers Association (NEAA) 2013 Winter Seminar on January 30^th about the business threat of mishandling Payment Card Industry (PCI) and other personal data. Grimm will present “The Future of PCI – Protecting Only Credit Card Data Isn’t Enough: How to Use Personal Data Protection Services to Improve Customer Retention and Boost Your Bottom Line” at the Grand Summit Hotel in Mount Snow, Vermont.

The NEAA provides an educational forum for financial institutions and members of the acquiring industry whose attendees will hear Grimm explain how identity theft, which tops the FTC’s list of consumer complaints, must be addressed. By helping merchants go beyond protecting credit card data (PCI compliance), which is ONLY part of a much greater concern to protect all personally identifiable (PII) and protected health information (PHI), the payments community can make a significant difference which also generates significant new revenues.

Grimm will discuss how the growth of EMV will affect PCI and PII compliance and describe the complexity of regulations and penalties (both civil and criminal) for data loss that affect merchants, and consequentially, acquirer revenues.

Takeaways will include best practices for merchants and payment processors alike. Grimm will proffer a new stance on compliance. Instead of thinking of the compliance process as a painful exercise, businesses who proactively prepare (as recommended by Visa) for inevitable data loss can ease the fallout of an incident.

“Given a new perspective to educate merchants and provide them with best practices and tools, acquirers and processors can enhance their value as well as their revenues,” says Grimm. “Instead of leaving merchants to figure out what they need, ISOs who step up to provide security services will strengthen their bonds with merchants and open up new channels of revenues.”

CSR is proud to help sponsor the NEAA Winter Seminar. Attendees can meet CSR Representative Scott Dennett, who will join Grimm at CSR’s booth to describe CSR’s patented PCI ToolKit™ and patent-pending CSR Breach Reporting ToolKit™ solutions as well as CSR’s ISO and other consulting services. PCI compliance is made easier for merchants and processors alike by the PCI ToolKit solution. The one-of-a-kind CSR Breach Reporting ToolKit takes the headache and hassle out of post-breach reporting to authorities. Both solutions are part of CSR’s growing suite of data compliance and value-added business services.

Grimm is a seasoned payments executive with extensive merchant acquiring industry knowledge and expertise in regulatory and card brand compliance as a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) credentialed by the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She is a member of the Electronic Transactions Association's (ETA) Data Security Task Force and has served on that Association's Risk Committee. Additionally, Grimm serves on the Western States Acquirers Association (WSAA) Advisory Board, and is an author of numerous articles addressing risk management and compliance issues for the payments industry. She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

About CSR

CSR is the leading provider of data compliance solutions and expert business services that helps organizations turn compliance into revenue both domestically and around the globe. We enable compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards and Personally identifiable information (PII) requirements while facilitating best practices to reduce the business risk and financial liability associated with the acquisition, handling, storage, sharing and disposal of data.

The company is a PCI Security Standards Council Participating Organization and is a member of Merchant Acquirers’ Committee (MAC), International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), Electronic Transactions Association, European Privacy Association, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HTFP) Association, and National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA).

Founded in 1999, CSR is a privately held corporation headquartered in Jensen Beach, Fla. For more information, please contact CSR at 866.462.7774 or visit www.csrcorporate.com.

About the NorthEast Acquirers Association

The NorthEast Acquirers Association (NEAA) serves as an Educational Forum for Financial Institutions and ISOs, MSPs, and MLSs in the acquiring industry. The NEAA focuses on providing information and networking opportunities to help attendee and vendor partners in the ever-changing electronic payment industry.