Tokenization is the process by which payment account numbers (cardholder data) are substituted for “tokens” that represent the payment account number. In other words, tokenization describes the process of replacing sensitive data with unique identification symbols that retain all the essential information about the data. This process creates a method to pass the data without compromising security. Together with our partners MIDsource offers tokenization either directly through our gateways or the ability to manage the token externally from the gateway so you, the merchant can control your data and process through multiple gateways if need be. If your business relies on recurring payments you will need to understand the benefits of tokenization.
Even with ongoing efforts to comply with the PCI Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) guidelines, merchants continue to experience vulnerabilities and costly breaches. This is giving rise to solutions such as tokenization. Tokenization reduces the PCI DSS scope and merchant responsibilities as it keeps merchants from having to store sensitive payment information.