What are Merchant Agents and Service Providers?
Merchant Agents and Service Providers are third parties that your business has a commercial relationship with for the purposes of storing, processing, transmitting, or affecting the security of cardholder data. These might include eCommerce web developers, off-site data back-up providers, or payment service providers. You are responsible for ensuring your third parties are compliant with the PCI DSS. For more information, refer to the terms and conditions within your merchant agreement. Visa and Mastercard have lists of compliant merchant agents and service providers. These are available from Mastercard and Visa.