Global mobile commerce services provider Cellum announced today it has become one of a handful of firms worldwide to have adopted the latest Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, PCI DSS 3.0, according to a press release.

The new standard is a more exacting version of the requirements first introduced a decade ago by the PCI Security Standards Council, a forum founded by the five leading global payment brands: MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover Financial Services and JCB International. PCI DSS aims to enhance the security of cardholder data and broaden the adoption of consistent data security standards for all firms and entities involved in payment card processing.

While most organizations subject to the standard are expected to implement it closer to the Dec. 31 deadline, Cellum said in the release it is the first company in Europe to be compliant and one of the first worldwide

"We were confident that we would successfully pass the PCI DSS 3.0 certification process because our own internal security requirements are even stricter," Balázs Inotay, Cellum’s founder and chief visionary, said in the announcement.

PCI DSS 3.0 puts emphasis on consistency between assessors and documentation, eliminating redundancies and clarifying the intent of individual requirements, Cellum noted in the press release.

"The new standards offer another boost to cardholder security, which we believe is the key to growth in our industry, where the only acceptable rate for fraud or customer data loss is zero," Inotay said.