The Board of Advisors will represent the current roster of more than 100 PCI SSC Participating Organizations, and will provide strategic and technical guidance to the PCI Security Standards Council, reflecting the varied perspectives of different global stakeholders. The Council views this input as critical to the ongoing enhancement of PCI SSC security standards. As a worldwide organization managing a global standard, the Council desires representation from EMEA, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific to reflect the global nature of card data security threats.

"We are excited to open the next chapter in the development of the PCI Security Standards Council and invite stakeholders from across the payment chain to step up and represent their industry in the drive to secure card payment data," said Seana Pitt, chair, PCI Security Standards Council. "We encourage all those involved in the payment process; merchants, processors, point-of-sale vendors, financial institutions and payment companies to become Participating Organizations and to consider taking on this elevated role."

To generate a broad range of input from across the stakeholder chain, 21 seats will be available on the PCI SSC Board of Advisors. Fourteen seats will be open for nomination by members of the existing PCI SSC Participating Organizations. To ensure a wider range of input, an additional seven seats will be appointed from the Participating Organization by the PCI SSC Executive Council to fill any gaps in representation and to help augment any under-represented stakeholder sector or geographic market.

In order to capture relevant feedback from all parties involved in the payment process, the council is encouraging diverse representation on the Board of Advisors, by both industry focus and geography. To ensure the desired breadth of industry focus, the 14 elected seats will be distributed in categories as follows:

• Financial institutions
• Merchants
• Processors
• Others (POS Vendors, etc)