When the FTC on Monday announced a probe into how PCI operates, it threatened to shine a light into how merchants deal with payments security. Even for merchants — who typically express bitter resentment about the paperwork-intensive and labor-expensive PCI process — it’s an uncomfortable area to probe. And that is because, despite retail’s long-term resistance to PCI, they know that it has sharply improved security.

In other words, retailers understand that PCI is far from perfect, but it’s probably a lot better than the same process tweaked by FTC rules. The devil you know.  The FTC probe will be examining, among other things, potentially excessive charges, inconsistency in enforcement, card brand influence and rampant conflicts of interest.

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