With high-profile hacks bringing up awkward questions about security, payments industry leaders are looking to establish a guideline that will make all modes of mobile payments secure and safe for consumers.
The PCI Security Standards Council has released a guideline for tokenization security, setting best practices guidelines for merchants and payment vendors that will keep user data safe.
The reliance on tokenization is not surprising, since the technology has been heralded by many industry insiders as the most secure way of keeping hackers from accessing account numbers.
This is because tokenization replaces payment card data like account numbers with a token that can be used to identify buyers and process payments. With tokens, payment systems do not need to store account numbers and thus makes their data worthless to hackers.
The guidelines detail how to create, store, and implement tokens. Fully compatible with EMV chips and embracing point-to-point encryption, PCI’s guidelines are designed to be fully compatible with all e-commerce and brick-and-mortar platforms.
The guidelines were discussed by PCI at the most recent TRANSACT15 conference, and have been published in full on the group’s website.