Do You Own Your Business’ Payment Tokens? Here’s Why You Should

Cardholder data protection is an increasingly important consideration within the payments environment. Electronic payment processing is complex and risk-inducing, with each new integration or payment type increasing payment system complexity and the additional security risk. When appropriately used, payment tokens can protect sensitive cardholder data and help retailers to create an authentic omnichannel experience.

A powerful technology that can protect and remove cardholder data from your retailer systems, tokenization can help protect customer information, insulate payment systems from security risks, reduce PCI scope, and provide relief from breach notification. Tokenization is also beneficial for customers. Beyond the security they supply, tokenization can help retailers offer a frictionless omnichannel purchase journey from start to finish. 

However, to take advantage of the numerous benefits of tokenization, many merchants may be using processor-provided services, which can often lead to being locked into a relationship with that specific processor. Whether you need to deploy tokenization or manage/migrate from an existing service, with a security-first mindset, OLS Payments helps merchants with flexible security solutions to protect cardholder data and your systems.

How can I own my business’ payment data?

Although merchants likely do not create the tokens, tokens can be supplied or generated by a provider of the business’ choice. When a merchant “owns” their tokens and vault, they can maintain access to the tokens and move them to another provider should the relationship with the tokenization provider change or end. As a payments orchestration partner, OLS allows merchants to maintain ownership of all tokens giving you peace of mind and without burdening your customers with re-entering their payment card information.

The Many Benefits of Tokenization

Enabling payment tokens allows retailers to drive a better customer experience, making the shopping experience faster and easier. Some of the many benefits of tokenization include:

• Maximum customer convenience: Users only need to input their payment information once with payment tokenization. The tokens can be fetched quickly for repeat customers to complete payments efficiently. 
• Secure recurring billing: Payment tokens help merchants offer friction-free regular payments for subscriptions and installment purchases.
• Seamless returns and refunds: The tokenized data can expedite the processing of returns and refunds, online or in person, without compromising security.
• A unified and personalized experience: Payment tokens are a way for merchants to create an omnichannel experience for customers and offer post-purchase upgrades or follow-up transactions without asking customers for their payment information.

Developed with a security-first mindset, the tokenization solution available in the OLS platform can support a full range of tokenization functionality, including:

• Tokens can be customer-provided or system-generated 
• APIs available to look up the actual card value using the token 
• PCI-compliant encryption for data storage
• Supporting token generation on each transaction 
• The ability to register a card for a permanent token 
• Capability to add or delete tokens 
• Transaction lookup using token value

Payments Data Offers Deeper Customer Insights

Payments data is an often underutilized tool for merchants to gain deeper insights and analyze customers, unlocking more revenue and improving experiences. However, to track consumers’ transaction information, merchants must be cautious about storing and using that data. Proper security is crucial in decreasing risk and increasing customer trust. 

Tokenization, particularly a retailer’s tokenization, has become a handy tool for merchants looking to secure their payment processes while reaping the benefits of tracking customer activity across sales channels. However, as mentioned before, it is crucial to consider the future ramifications of using processor-provided tokenization services. Though it may seem to be a more simplified path to deployment, merchants we work with find the fees and limitations increasingly problematic.

Key Takeaways

• Enabling payment tokens allows retailers to drive a better customer experience.
• Using processor-provided services can often lead merchants to be locked into a relationship with a specific processor.
• When merchants depend on a processor for tokenization, it can hinder their flexibility.
• OLS helps merchants utilize the providers they feel add the most value to their enterprise.

Payment Orchestration Provides Payment Token Flexibility

With security technology built into the core architecture of the OLS payment platform, OLS helps merchants utilize the providers that they feel add the most value to their enterprise, expanding their payments capabilities while reducing their management burden. OLS can help merchants efficiently set up tokenization or manage/migrate from an existing service. Contact us today to learn how OLS Payments can help your business deploy your payment tokens.