UVAFinance Team wins national award for PCI Compliance Training

Ruth Parcells

 Payment Card Services is the area of Financial Reporting & Operations (FR&O) responsible for supporting UVA's departments and units that accept credit cards.  This includes making sure those involved with credit card payments across Grounds have the proper annual training in order to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards.

Recently, a collaborative effort between FR&O and Finance Outreach & Compliance led not only to a much-improved training for those on the front line but also national recognition.

For Ruth Parcells, then-Senior Card Compliance Analyst in FR&O*, the training traditionally offered was based in powerpoint, and it covered everything from high-level compliance concerns to how to maintain a point-of-sale device.  The training badly needed an update, and some focus so it was easier for people to digest.

"Anyone who comes into contact with cardholder data, whether it's on a website, over the phone, or in-person needs this training," Parcells explains, adding that "this means we're working with a very broad group."

Erika Priddy

Parcells turned to Finance Outreach & Compliance (FOC), a fellow department within UVAFinance, to modernize and sharpen the PCI training.  Training and Development Specialist Erika Priddy from FOC worked with Parcells to vastly improve the training and customize it to the variety of roles within the PCI world at UVA.

Priddy says the focus was on making the training "super quick, easy, and applicable to people within their specific role, providing training pertinent to their job duties, whether that's recognizing suspicious customers or knowing when your machine is having problems."


Working together, Parcells and Priddy produced "PCI Credit Card Security," a training that is specific, automated, gamified and less than 20 minutes in length.

Parcells, encouraged by the improvements in the training that she submitted the new PCI Compliance Training to the National Cyberwatch Center, and it was ultimately chosen for a winning spot at their 2019 National CyberWatch Center Innovations in Cyber Security Education program.

Parcells' and Priddy's collaborative effort will be honored at the Community College Cyber Summit in Shreveport LA, on Tuesday, July 30. 

Additionally, their work will be featured in press, social media, and National Cyberwatch's annual journal.

For more on PCI Training, visit FR&O's Payment Card Services page on the web. 

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* Ruth Parcells joins the Audit team this July; we're sorry to see her leave FR&O but so glad she stays with us in Carruthers Hall!