Customer-data-storage

Merchants need to be PCI compliant to securely handle credit card transactions, with PCI guidelines strongly advising against storing credit card numbers directly. For simple online payments, using a processor's secure hosted payment page ensures PCI compliance by keeping card entry off the merchant's site. For more complex applications needing recurring billing, processors offer tokenization, where a customer ID replaces the actual card number, allowing for rebilling without storing sensitive data and maintaining PCI compliance.

Storing customer credit card information is now heavily regulated by PCI, making rebilling challenging for merchants aiming for compliance. A solution is to utilize a PCI-approved third-party payment processor to securely store card details and issue a customer ID in return. This approach allows merchants to rebill customers using only the ID, thus achieving PCI compliance by avoiding direct storage of sensitive cardholder data.