AFS and Central Bank of Bahrain Bank host seminar of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain – 21 February 2008

Arab Financial Services Company BSC (c) (AFS), the region’s leading provider of electronic-payments and consumer finance outsourcing services, hosted, under the patronage of the Central Bank of Bahrain, a seminar on Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) recently.

The chief guest at the seminar, Mr Khalil Jaffar Al Hamad, Director, Inspection Directorate, Central Bank of Bahrain opened the event and addressed the audience which included participants from 17 banks from Bahrain.

Shankar Sharma, CEO, AFS made the keynote address on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which covered an introduction to PCI DSS, the concepts and the history of the standard. The PCI DSS requires merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit customer payment card data adhere to information security controls and processes that ensure data integrity.

The main speaker for the seminar was Mr Dharshan Shanthamurthy, Chief Consultant, SISA Bahrain who explained in detail the various requirements of the 12 domains on PCI DSS; other speakers included Mr Henri Schomper, Vice-President and Regional Head Security and Risk Services, MasterCard Worldwide; Mr Richard Trim, Head of Vendor Compliance and Security, Risk Management, Visa CEMEA and Mr S Jawad Al Alawi, Network and Communication Manager, AFS.

“The team at AFS is happy to have organised this event under the patronage of the Central Bank of Bahrain. It was a useful and successful seminar with a great turnout from the banks. We encourage all banks to become PCI DSS compliant in the near future,” explained Shankar Sharma, CEO, AFS.

“The effective security of data held by institutions is an area of increasing importance and concern for individuals and corporate bodies. Recent events have demonstrated the damage to the reputation of organizations which fail to retain the confidentiality of customer data. Implementing and practicing the requirements of PCI DSS is a major step in facilitating best practice in this area. It was a pleasure to see so many financial organizations represented today. The CBB encourages the adoption of best practice in all areas of business, including compliance with data security standards, and looks forward to further enhancements which will protect sensitive data relating to the financial industry.“ Said Mr. Mr Khalil Jaffar Al Hamad, Director, Inspection Directorate, Central Bank of Bahrain.

Currently, AFS is a Participating Organisation and is working with the Council to evolve the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards. AFS has already been working in this area for over a year and is now working on the final stage of compliance which would make the company the first organising in the region to have that status.