We notice you are visiting from a U.S. Internet provider. 
04/01/2010 -
MasterCard caused quite a stir in the payment processing community in mid-December when it changed its previous requirements for Level 2 merchants that had asked them to complete an on-site PCI compliance audit from a QSA by the end of the year.But apparently that was not the most noteworthy part of the company's December 13 announcement, according to industry news website StorefrontBacktalk.com.
Previously, the company had posted descriptions on its website of how the different merchant levels were defined, saying they were designed for parity with any competing payment brand.
In August or September, that language was removed, as the company believed it might cause confusion due to the different definitions put forth by Visa, Discover and American Express. A substitution to that clause was included in the December 13 announcement, changing the "competing payment brand" phrase to "Visa."
StorefrontBacktalk.com reported that this delayed substitution has caused significant confusion among merchants, many of which may have assumed that the removal of the clause for a period of three or four months changed the requirements.
MasterCard said that its policy had never changed, only the website phrasing did.
These definitions may become of even more interest to Canadian businesses with merchant accounts, as the company is set to enter the Canadian debit card market shortly.
