Arab Financial Services (AFS), a leading provider of electronic payments and consumer finance outsourcing services, said it has become one of the first organisations in the Middle East to achieve the prestigious PCI DSS certification on its latest version release 3.0.

"The PCI DSS 3.0 certification gives us tremendous opportunities to offer increased security and value to our clients and ensure that the latest and most updated standards towards information security are implemented at AFS,” remarked B. Chandrasekhar, the company's chief executive.

"AFS is proud to continue its journey of being the pioneers in adopting such stringent standards, as it continues from being the first service provider in the region to gain PCI DSS certification in 2008 to becoming the first service provider responding to the new 3.0 standards. We realise the importance of providing assurance to our customers on the resilience of our operations," he added.

Chandrasekhar lauded the employees, especially Operations and Information Security teams, for their commitment and dedication towards achieving this acclaimed certification.

AFS was assisted in this key initiative by SISA Information Security, the leading information risk management provider in the region.

SISA chief executive officer Dharshan Shanthamurthy commended AFS team on achieving PCI DSS v3.0 Compliance, the only standard dedicated to security of card holder data and rated as one of the most stringent security standard.

"SISA, being the largest payment card security certification company in the region, endeavors to partner with organisations such as AFS to improve their security posture. We appreciate the commitment and dedication of AFS to secure their customer data and going through the stringent audit process of SISA Information Security," he added.-TradeArabia News Service