Transparent Gateway vs. Payment Services: Which is Right for My Business?

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Token service providers come in all shapes and sizes. From those that specialize in tokenization to those that offer it as a secondary service, these vendors might appear to provide similar products, and for the most part, they do. However, truly independent token service providers separate themselves from traditional ones by offering unmatched flexibility. 

So, what does that mean? Both in terms of inbound channels for data acceptance and outbound technologies for data transmission, platform-wide flexibility can be a key differentiator for organizations that need to ingest data from multiple channels and send it to various third-party payment service providers. This outbound functionality is especially valuable, and TokenEx offers a pair of tools for this.  

Transparent Gateway (TGAPI 2.0) 

The first is our popular Transparent Gateway API 2.0. For organizations looking for a customizable low-code solution, this feature allows you to send sensitive data to any API endpoint. So, you can easily integrate with your desired ecosystem of processors, gateways, and other third-party technologies. 

Recent enhancements to this feature include the ability to tokenize data received directly from third parties, to tokenize up to 10 tokens per API call, and to encrypt multiple data elements in an outbound message.  

Through its expanded ability to tokenize inbound requests from third parties, TGAPI 2.0 minimizes the surface area organizations must secure to protect incoming sensitive data, creating a more easily manageable risk footprint. This greatly reduces cost and complexity while enabling the limitless expansion of third-party acceptance channels with no increase to PCI scope. 

Here’s a full list of the benefits and features of TGAPI 2.0: 

  • Transmit and receive sensitive data without introducing risk or compliance scope 
  • Securely interact with any third-party API 
  • Work with any combination of processors or gateways 
  • Tokenize or detokenize multiple data elements in a single API call 
  • Support message-level functions for additional processing like encryption, decryption, or inserting a security code 
  • Payload hashing endpoint to satisfy digital signature requirements 
  • Accommodate any message format such as REST/JSON, SOAP/XML, formURLencoding, etc. 
Payment Services (PS 2.0) 

The second outbound feature is the Payment Services API 2.0. For those who prefer a more hands-off approach, this gives you a single maintenance-free point of integration for connecting to your desired combination of PSPs so you can process transactions as you see fit. Our existing integrations include:

  • Adyen 
  • Authorize.Net 
  • BluePay 
  • Braintree 
  • ChaseNetConnect 
  • CyberSource 
  • Elavon 
  • Nuvei 
  • Stripe 
  • Payeezy 
  • EBANX 

Because these integrations are prebuilt, they’re quick and easy to implement. Recent enhancements to this feature include the ability to process electronic checks for ACH transactions, to use additional fields to help increase approval rates for merchant-initiated transactions, and to insert Level 2 data to reduce interchange fees on corporate cards and business-to-business transactions.  

Here’s a full list of the benefits and features of PS 2.0: 

  • Offload the building, maintenance, and certification of API endpoints 
  • Code to a single API that connects to a variety of processors, gateways, and other endpoints 
  • Pass through additional identifiers to lower transaction costs and easily meet card-brand regulations for recurring transactions 
  • Enable rapid speed-to-market, international expansion, increased conversion rates, etc. 
The TokenEx Difference

Regardless of which outbound feature you choose, you can trust TokenEx to keep your data secure without disrupting your business operations. Since 2010, we’ve partnered with our clients to protect and share their most sensitive data. Unlike other providers, we don’t hold it captive. Instead, we give you more ways to use it safely. As a result, you can add value to your data and to your business. 

We’re known for helping with false declines, processor lock-in, and PCI compliance. We can even improve your authorization rates up to 5 percentage points. To do this, our security pros work with you to help design your ideal solution. So, you can feel confident when your customers pay.