Tokenization
Replacing a card number with a meaningless substitute so the real number never lands in your systems.
Tokenization swaps a card number for a surrogate value that is useless if stolen and can only be de-referenced by the payment provider. It is what allows a saved card, a repeat guest profile or a card-on-file charge to work without the restaurant ever holding the real number. For an operator the benefit is mostly about scope: tokens are not cardholder data, so systems that only ever see tokens carry far less PCI burden.
Related terms
See it in Opero
Opero runs POS, kiosk, QR, KDS, inventory, and payments on one platform — on the tablets you already own.