How to Store Customer’s Credit Cards

Everyone wants to keep their data secure, no matter if you are a business or an individual, you do not want your information leaked into the wrong hands. So, storing your customer’s credit card information safely is essential, but how?

Gateway Storing

The way you store your information is going to be based on what type of business you are. If you have a website where you accept payments, we always recommend using a gateway. The gateway connects the merchant account securely to the website or the software or whatever that might be.

Some of the most popular gateways are Authorize.Net and Network Merchants International (NMI.) These gateways allow you to securely store information. And so that sensitive data never actually hits your website.

Credit Card Processors Can Store Your Data but Be Careful!

Credit card processors can offer to store your customer’s information for your securely, but they can also use this as a way to “hold you hostage.” For example, we worked with a landscaping company that wanted to switch from their previous processor, but all of their customer’s CC info was stored with that processor. In order for that business owner to retrieve his customer’s info, he had to pay the processor $5 for each client’s credit card number. He ended up paying $3,000 just to get his customer’s info back from the processor!

Long story short, we do not recommend having your processors store your customer’s information! Store them in a gateway that you own so that if you ever do decide to change processors, you can take your data with you.

Learn More About Rate Tracker

If you are interested in learning more about gateway storing, contact us today!