o security initiatives, their deadlines and fine print, floating in the air across financial services like springtime pollen, confuse you? Take truncation of credit card account numbers on printed receipts: Card Associations, as well as federal and state governments, have policies in place to abbreviate the amount of information that appears on customers' receipts.

These policies have different schedules for compliance and requirements for truncating information. Visa specifies that customer receipts display only the last four digits and no expiration dates; under a federal law signed by President Bush in December 2003, known as the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, five digits, but no expiration date, can appear.

Recently, a reader of The Green Sheet e-mailed us wondering whether merchants' copies can show only truncated account numbers, and if so, what happens when validations are necessary in retrievals and chargebacks?

The answer is that account truncation policies currently apply only to customer receipts. A spokesperson for Visa U.S.A. said that the idea is to limit opportunities for "dumpster diving" for receipts containing credit card information. Merchants should have their own internal security policies in place to protect cardholder data, including limiting access to the information to "need-to-know" bases, Visa said. The issue of truncation goes back 10 years, when customers began leaving receipts behind at the new self-service terminals just being deployed at locations such as gas stations.

In March 2003, Visa became the first in the industry to announce a truncation policy. The first stage of its implementation was effective July 1, 2003 and required all electronic terminals manufactured from that point forward to comply with its policy.

The second stage, effective July 1, 2006, will broaden coverage to all terminals. That means any existing terminals in use will have to be upgraded with hardware fixes or software downloads, or be replaced altogether. For total compliance, merchants should also be familiar with their states' specific policies and deadlines.