Sensitive-data-storage

RESTful APIs are becoming increasingly common in payment gateways like Stripe and Amazon due to their advantages. These APIs offer benefits such as improved performance through HTTP caching, simplified application structure, and easy integration with various programming languages. While not all gateways use RESTful APIs (e.g., PayPal, Braintree), considering the API type is important when choosing a payment gateway for your needs.

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 sensitive customer data locally for rebilling purposes creates PCI compliance challenges, leading many merchants to seek alternatives. Merchant account providers offer a solution by securely storing customer payment information and issuing a customer ID or token. This allows merchants to rebill customers using just the ID, simplifying PCI compliance and streamlining recurring transactions.