Updated June 17, 2021

The internet changed the way people live, work and play, thanks to its ability to bring a world of information right to a user’s fingertips. While most people use this technology for good, it also provides a treasure trove of data for hackers who can use a stolen identity to make easy money.  In 2020, the average cost of a data breach to a business in the United States was 8.64 million.

To combat this, in industries where merchants need to store cardholder data for recurring and card-on file payments software providers can easily add credit card tokenization to their software solution.  Merchants can then use the credit card tokenization service, which substitutes sensitive information with meaningless characters that would be useless to a thief. Instead of encrypting numbers with an algorithm that could be cracked, customer data sits safely in a secure facility known as a token vault.

Who Can Benefit?

Online customers aren’t the only people at risk, as shoppers at brick-and-mortar stores have seen their information stolen in cyber attacks. This technology is extremely versatile, and can be used in any software vertical such as:

• Business-to-business and ERP software providers
• Spa and salon software
• Donor management
• Auction management
• Club membership software
• Field services software solutions
• Practice management

Merchants that rely on subscriptions as a part of their business model can especially benefit from this technology, as it only takes one data breach to destroy customer confidence. Software developers can easily add tokenization technology to their application alongside their exiting payments integration so customers do not have to go to a secondary application to store cardholder data.

How it Works

How Can You Protect Your Customers?

If your software is supporting any type of business in today’s interconnected world, you owe it to your customers to offer credit card tokenization as protection against identity thieves. More than 14 million credit card numbers were exposed in 2017, and you don’t want your name or your customer’s names associated with any of these incidents.