How a Fintech Can Reduce PCI Scope

PCI DSS is the payment-card security standard required for fintechs that accept credit-card payments, with compliance obligations expanding according to transaction volume and the number of systems, employees, partners, and APIs that handle cardholder data or personally identifiable information. Introduced in 2004 and currently governed by PCI DSS 4.0.1, the standard’s full future-dated requirements became mandatory in March 2025, making 2026 assessments more comprehensive. Fintechs can limit compliance costs and operational complexity by minimizing storage and access to primary account numbers and other sensitive data, using payment service providers or third-party tokenization vaults instead. Such vaults can retain sensitive information, issue tokens for transactions, restrict employee access, and allow businesses to route payments among multiple processors without surrendering customer-data control. The passage cites Ansa’s decision to avoid handling cardholder data directly and states that providers such as Basis Theory can assume much of the associated compliance responsibility, potentially reducing PCI scope by up to 90 percent while supporting services such as branded card programs.

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