Mastercard refutes NRF proposal to stop storing data

In an unprecedented move, PCI&nbsp; big player <strong>Mastercard</strong> speaks out a move to immediately disregard credit card information after the transactions have been authorized in the account.<br /><br />The National Retail Federation (NRF) recently petitioned that merchants be no longer required&nbsp; to save the customers&#39; credit card information after authorization takes place.&nbsp; As of press time, the Payment Card Industry (PCI)&nbsp; obligates merchants and credit card companies to store credit card data such as the account number to be stored even after the transaction has been authorized in the customers&#39; credit card account.&nbsp;<strong> Mastercard</strong> stresses that this move will not directly reduce the risk of fraud or chargebacks. &nbsp;<br /><br />Looking from another angle, privacy issues are what&#39;s at stake here.&nbsp; The longer the customer&#39;s credit card information is being kept, there may be chances that hackers may get in the system and steal the personally identifiable information and use it for purposes the devil only knows what. &nbsp;<br /><br />But <strong>Mastercard</strong> strongly puts importance on storing the data a little longer, that this is actually defense in the event that a customer makes a dispute, at least the credit card companies have a reference of the actual transaction.&nbsp; Merchants have tools to truncate the information in a language unfathomable to human minds. <br /><br />At the end of the day,&nbsp; getting the gist from <strong>Mastercard</strong>&#39;s rebuttal to the proposal, it all comes down to risk management issues both on the customers and the credit card issuers parts.