The PA-DSS new payment application data security standard is just an improved version
of PCI compliance and it is applicable to all products where any type of online transaction is involved. People purchasing any product or any services from the website the host and the web site both must be compliant with the new PA-DSS. The DSS was started by Visa and it was PABP in start which stands for Payment Application Best Practices and it was not affiliated with the PCI council of security which represents the all major companies as total 5 credit card companies. If you need to be PCI compliant your cart must be running the application which is DSS certified and maintaining all regulation of PCI.
The PCI PA-DSS compliance is a set of rules and regulation that need to be maintained on host side to give a safe and secure purchase for the client side. The PCI compliance is the rules, according to which any credit card or debit card transaction process online.
These rules and regulations applies to the entire hosting provider, shopping carts and business online or any type of payment gateway that make use of secure data processed over internet. When any or merchant is certified by DSS then the company is added to the List of Visa compliant companies. These rules and regulation are also a means of satisfaction to the people who are making purchase and afraid of identity theft kinds of issues. From the July 2010 the website running any online business are required to have PCI PA-DSS compliance necessarily so that they can process the credit card payment securely.
The companies which need this compliance should be suing encrypted network transmission and updating their system, application and ant viruses regularly in addition to the PCI requirements. There are number of companies that scan merchants for PCI audits and these companies are approved by Visa and MasterCard. They also help merchants to complete the questionnaire by PCI to show the PCI PA-DSS compliance. If you are fully certified by DSS then no one can breach into your secure systems.