National Bank of Bahrain Deploys Pilot Tokenization Program

Manama, Bahrain: National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) is now live with a tokenization pilot (via the Bahraini-based Benefit switch network) for both debit and credit card applications using their employees. Token life cycle and token transaction authorization is fully functional. NBB will expand their pilot to include cooperating business users before release to their entire customer base. Recently live with SWITCHWARE® for Linux, NBB has been a CSFi customer for over 35 years.

Tokenization Summary

Tokenization is the process of protecting sensitive data by replacing it with an algorithmically generated number called a token. Often, tokenization is used to prevent credit card fraud. In credit card tokenization, the customer’s primary account number (PAN) is replaced with a series of randomly-generated numbers, which is called the “token.” These tokens can then be passed through the internet or the various wireless networks needed to process the payment without actual bank details being exposed. The actual bank account number is held safe in a secure token vault. Payment experts are seeing more and more organizations moving from encryption to tokenization as a more cost-effective (and secure) way to protect and safeguard sensitive information. One of the most widespread uses of tokenization today is in the payments processing industry. Tokenization allows users to store credit card information in mobile wallets, ecommerce solutions and POS software to allow the card to be recharged without exposing the original card information. Tokenization replaces sensitive cardholder detail with a stand-in token. This helps secure the customer’s bank account details in credit card and ecommerce transactions. Unlike data that is encrypted, tokens are not mathematically reversible with a decryption key and PAN data is never displayed.

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