As you explore the world of merchant tokenization, you may frequently come across three seemingly interchangeable terms: acquiring tokens, issuer tokens, and payment tokens. Each of these tokens works in a relatively similar way, replacing a primary account number with an alternative value. However, these tokens all originate in different places and can have slight differences. Here’s how the Payment Card Industry defines each:
Acquiring Tokens
Acquiring tokens are created by the acquirer, merchant, or a merchant’s service provider after the cardholder presents their PAN and/or other payment credentials. These tokens are not subject to any industry standards for generation, formatting, or provisioning.
Acquiring tokens cannot be used for new authorizations. They can be used for card-on-file and recurring payments.
Issuer Tokens (Virtual Card Numbers)
Issuer tokens are created by credit card issuers (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express.) These tokens have a much more limited scope of use.
Make Payment Security Much Less Confusing
At Curbstone, we know just how complicated payment tokenization – or anything related to data security – can be. That’s why we make the process easy for our merchants. We focus on the technical specifications and complicated annual audits, while customers get to focus on what they do best: running their own business. To learn more about secure, integrated credit and debit card processing, contact us today.
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