What is Tokenization
To start with you may be wondering what tokenization even is. Well, at its most simple, it’s taking a piece of data and associating that data with a unique string of characters. That string of characters is then used in place of the data. We call the string of characters a token and it is not created from the data. A token gets assigned to the data by the tokenization system.
A token is not created using the underlying data. That’s a key point. It is this feature that stops nefarious parties from being able to reverse engineer the token and get at your data. The data tokenized can be anything. A customer’s name, address, or even their payment details.
How is Tokenization Relevant
So, how is tokenization relevant to your business? Well, the key issue is how it helps you to secure your information. Having your data compromised exposes you to risk. Obvious risks include loss of customers and damage to your brand. But there could also be legal risks. Your business‘’s location and the markets it operates in will impact your obligations. Your business may already have, or soon will have, legal requirements for data security that it has to meet. For example, the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is a common requirement for any business that processes or holds cardholder data.
Solving these issues, on your own, would be an immense undertaking. Many internet businesses run very lean. Your core business has your team running at max capacity already. Do you have the scope for a big new project?
Can Tokenization Help in Your Business
So, back to the original question, can tokenization help your business? At this point, you might be thinking all you have is new headaches to think through. Here’s the upside though. This is a solved problem. There are already organizations that supply the good points of tokenization, i.e., security and compliance, as a service.
We don’t. That’s not what we do here at PayShield. If you want chargeback mitigation, we’re here for you. Please reach out and contact our sales team. However, we have seen how tokenization could be a good solution for data security concerns and compliance issues for our customers. To that end we’ve partnered with what we feel is one of the best tokenization solutions in the market.
That solution is TokenEx. You can reach out to them here or get more details on their offerings here.
Why TokenEx
There are three key reasons why we recommend TokenEx as a solution for online businesses. First is the flexibility their solution provides to companies. Especially if you’re switching payment processors. Second is their ability to handle a wide range of business types. All the way from small startups to very large corporations. Third, TokenEx’s solution allows a business to completely outsource the storage of sensitive customer data.
Is TokenEx Flexible?
TokenEx allows you to tokenize your sensitive data separate from your payment solution. Your payment provider can’t lock you in by having you create a tokenization solution based on their propriety system.
TokenEx also lets you have full control of all your tokens. This, again, helps you avoid situations where you’re stuck with your existing processor or gateway. They can’t hold you hostage by holding onto your tokens.
Can TokenEx Work with Your Team?
You could be a super lean team with one developer or a large company with a thousand-person dev team. TokenEx is set up to accommodate you. They have a wide range of documentation and support pages with common solutions to given problems.
What Data Does TokenEx Store
As we’ve alluded to in the previous paragraphs, TokenEx can store your customers personally identifiable (PII) and payment card industry (PCI) data. This removes this data from the scope of your environment. Creating a solution where you are completely removed from the hosting of sensitive customer data like credit card numbers or personal data.
You can store your sensitive customer data via TokenEx’s cloud storage. You supply the data to TokenEx and they return a token. You then use the token to retrieve the data at a later date. You can also opt to store your data yourself while using TokenEx to help you tokenize the data in your own systems. It’s up to you.
Can Tokenization and TokenEx Help in Your Business
How you keep your data safe and whether that meets your compliance requirements is going to become more and more of an issue. The wheels of government move slowly but they do grind ever forwards. Lawmakers and regulators are becoming more aware of data security and increased scrutiny is coming.
Outsourcing a tokenization solution that protects customers, and meets regulatory requirements, could be the best way for you to safeguard your business.
If you’re interested in talking with TokenEx the best option is to reach out to their team here. You can also look at the TokenEx website here to get more information.
If you’re an existing customer of PayShield and would like an introduction to TokenEx please reach out to us through our customer care department, via your account manager or via our contact us page.
