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Testing and defence led by a published security researcher with five CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1 Mirai botnet kill-switch.

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Audit-ready, fixed scope

SOC 2, ISO, CPCSC, and the Canadian privacy stack, run end to end with an independent auditor.

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PCI DSS · FinTech

PCI DSS for FinTech

Your customer, investor, or auditor just made PCI DSS a requirement. Here is what it takes, how long it runs, and how a Toronto team gets you there. Most clients are audit-ready in 8 to 12 weeks.

FinTechs that touch cards live inside PCI DSS scope, often alongside SOC 2 and bank-partner requirements. We scope the CDE and build controls that satisfy all three.

Book a free readiness call Full PCI DSS service

Why FinTech companies need PCI DSS

  • PCI DSS v4.0.1 applies to any FinTech that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data.
  • FinTech architectures (ledgers, processors, wallets) can pull large parts of the system into the cardholder data environment (CDE).
  • PCI often runs alongside SOC 2 and bank-partner due diligence; the controls overlap.
  • Tokenization and segmentation are the main levers to keep PCI scope and cost under control.

More context on this sector on our FinTech industry page, and on the framework itself on our PCI DSS hub.

What our PCI DSS engagement covers

Tailored to FinTech, delivered by a Toronto security and compliance team led by a published security researcher, with our offensive-security partner where offensive testing is involved.

  • CDE definition across payment, ledger, and processor integrations
  • Segmentation strategy to minimize in-scope systems
  • PCI DSS v4.0.1 scoping and cardholder data environment (CDE) definition
  • Gap assessment against the 12 requirements and the applicable SAQ selection
  • Network segmentation, encryption, and access-control implementation
  • Evidence collection and QSA / ASV coordination where required

See the full PCI DSS service page, or productized pricing for fixed-scope engagements.

Related pages

PCI DSS for FinTech: common questions

Do we need PCI DSS and SOC 2?

If you handle cards and sell to enterprises, usually both. PCI is specific to cardholder data; SOC 2 covers your broader control environment. We scope them together.

How do we reduce PCI scope?

Primarily through tokenization, outsourcing card handling to compliant processors, and network segmentation. We design the architecture to keep the CDE small.

Does using a payment processor make us PCI compliant?

It reduces your scope but does not eliminate your obligations. You still need the appropriate SAQ and controls. We clarify exactly what remains yours.

PCI DSS for FinTech, on your timeline

Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We will tell you whether this engagement fits, what it would cost, and when we could start.

Book a call Contact us

The same work, without the line item

Every readiness programme needs a control library, an evidence register, policies and a score for the board. Being quoted five figures a year for that is normal. Paying it is not.

traztech Workspace Other GRC platforms
Licence cost $0. Free forever, no card, no paid tier $7,500 to $50,000 a year, on an annual contract
Control library, evidence register, policy templates, risk register, vendor questionnaires, readiness scoring Included Included
What it costs inside an engagement with us $0. You need a workspace either way Unchanged. The subscription sits on top of the fee
What it does to your audit quote $11,000 off a five-figure quote on one engagement, for a documented readiness position Nothing. The audit firm prices your readiness, not your tooling

Pricing in the right column is what compliance automation platforms are publicly reported to charge; none of them publish a number, so treat it as a range rather than a quote. The $11,000 came off the audit firm's own number once the readiness position was documented (the engagement). Where a paid platform is the better buy, and the fuller comparison, is on the Workspace page.

Track record

Who is actually doing the work

We are deliberately not a large firm, and we would rather show you the work than a wall of logos. Here is what is behind the advice.

5
Published CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1
76
Controls taken from nothing to a passed SOC 2 Type II
Zero
Exceptions on that Type II report
75 days
Readiness window we have hit every time we have run it
20+
Penetration testing engagements delivered

Published vulnerability research

Five published CVEs. CVE-2024-45163 (CVSS 9.1) is a flaw in the Mirai botnet itself, which gave defenders a way to shut down attacker infrastructure. CVE-2026-42626 takes HP ENVY 5000 printers offline from any unauthenticated device on the same network.

The printer is the one that matters on a compliance page: an asset nobody counts as a computer, on a flat network, downed by a device that never had to log in. Auditors ask how controls fail. We have found out first-hand.

A SOC 2 Type II built from nothing

At Humera, a venture-backed US security company, Jacob built the compliance programme in-house from nothing: no report, no policies, no documented controls. It ended in a Type II attestation across 76 controls with zero exceptions, on a team of 15.

The platform held 99.9% uptime throughout, which is the part most readiness projects get wrong: controls are easy to design and hard to retrofit onto a system people already depend on.

Recent engagements

For a Waterloo data centre operator we ran SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 together rather than one after the other, across a production campus, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack. Scoped so further Ontario and Quebec sites enter as they reach production. Findings delivered and remediated.

For an Ontario medtech company putting an AI clinical assistant in front of practitioners, we ran the gap analysis and built the evidence programme behind their SOC 2.