Tokenization

Save your loyal customers’ payment information securely and PCI-compliant in the background as a token (aka alias) to make repeat purchases or one-click checkouts easily. Check the section saving payment information in our docs to see how this process works.

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Activation required

By default, the alias option is not active in your merchant configuration. Please contact us to activate the tokenization option for your account.

Except for credit & debit cards and loyalty & gift cards, you will be required to contact your acquirer or payment method provider to activate an additional option for your account. If the required option is not active on the acquiring level, an error will be returned if you try to create an alias.

Token format

Any alias created after a payment or a dedicated registration is unique. All payment methods share a common format:

AAABcH0Bq92s3kgAESIAAbGj5NIsAHWC
  • Possible characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _
  • Length: 32 characters

Payment methods support

The following table shows the payment methods supporting tokenization. It also shows you if a payment method supports registration only or payment and registration at the same time.

Payment methodRegistration OnlyPayment + Registration
Credit and Debit Cards:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
Loyalty & Gift Cards:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
Apple Pay ¹:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
CembraPay ²:heavy-check-mark::x:
EasyPay:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
Google Pay ¹:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
Klarna:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
PayPal:heavy-check-mark::x:
PostFinance Card:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
PowerPay:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
Reka:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
SEPA (ELV):heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
SwissPass:heavy-check-mark::heavy-check-mark:
TWINT:heavy-check-mark::x:

¹ Token creation only supported via Redirect and Lightbox. The Mobile SDKs support the creation of a pseudo alias (savedPaymentMethod) to facilitate recurring customer-initiated transactions. However, this pseudo alias cannot be used for charging merchant-initiated transactions.
² For CembraPay registrations, you will need to provide additional parameters within your init requests in the objects customer and INT. The required parameters may vary from merchant to merchant. Please double-check with CembraPay which information will be required for your contract. No additional parameters are required in your requests to debit a CembraPay alias. For payments with a CembraPay alias you may send optional parameters within customData located in the object INT.