Payabli platformPay Ops conceptsMigrate tokens

Migrate tokenized card data

Learn how migrating tokenized card data works in Payabli
Applies to:DevelopersPartnersPaypoints

As you onboard new clients, their prior software provider may have had a variety of different payments providers. To minimize impact on your merchant’s customers, you can export tokenized card data from other providers and import those tokens into Payabli. The migration process depends somewhat on the other processor’s method of sending the data and how their data is converted. For example, they may have a unique identifier for each customer or card that’s different from Payabli identifiers.

What you should expect during a migration depends on who your former processor is. This guide walks through the general, high-level migration steps.

The Payabli team helps with data migration, it’s not a self-service process. Reach out to the Payabli team to get started.

Set expectations with your merchants

Set expectations for your merchant during this process. The migration of tokenized data itself can take as little as a couple of hours, but the full process takes several days. Delays in receiving data from the outgoing provider, time spent updating data formats, and more can impact migration timelines.

Process overview

There’s some variation between processors, but this is the general process migrations follow.

If the data migration is happening at the same time as the merchant switching software partners, you may need to involve the outgoing software partner.

  1. Payabli gives the partner Payabli’s PGP Key and PCI SAQ.
  2. Payabli sets up an SFTP server for the transfer.
  3. The merchant, working with the software partner, requests the release of the encrypted card data. Because the merchant owns the data, the merchant must request the data from their outgoing processor.
  4. Payabli securely provides SFTP credentials to outgoing processor.
  5. Outgoing processor transfers encrypted data via SFTP. Each company has their own SLA to retrieve and send this data, typically within 3 to 10 business days. See the SFTP file transfer instructions section for instructions on how to securely transfer the data.
  6. Payabli receives this file, decrypts the data and returns tokenized data to the partner. The SLA for this step is 3 to 5 business days.
  7. Partner imports the customer data.

This sequence diagram can help you understand the process:

a sequence diagram that shows the token migration process

SFTP file transfer instructions

For partners and payment processors handling step 5 above, follow these instructions to securely deliver token files to the Payabli SFTP server.

Prerequisites

Before beginning the file transfer process, ensure you have:

  • SFTP connection details (server address, username, password, and port) provided by the Payabli Migrations Team
  • Payabli’s public PGP key for encrypting files
  • Token files prepared and ready for encryption
Contact the Payabli Migrations Team to obtain your unique SFTP credentials and PGP encryption key. These are required for secure file delivery and are provided on a per-partner basis.

Setup and connection

First, set up your SFTP client to connect to the Payabli SFTP server. This process may vary slightly depending on the client you choose, but typically follows these steps:

1

Choose an SFTP client

Select and install an SFTP client application. Common options include:

  • FileZilla (free, cross-platform)
  • WinSCP (Windows)
  • Cyberduck (macOS/Windows)
  • Command line SFTP (Linux/macOS/Windows)
2

Configure connection settings

In your SFTP client, enter the connection details provided by the Payabli Migrations Team:

  • Host/Server: [Provided server address]
  • Port: [Provided port number, typically 22]
  • Protocol: SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)
  • Username: [Provided username]
  • Password: [Provided password]
3

Test connection

Before transferring files, test your connection to ensure all credentials work correctly.

File preparation and transfer

Prepare your token files for transfer and follow the steps below to encrypt and upload them securely.

1

Encrypt token files

All token files must be encrypted using PGP before upload:

  1. Use the Payabli PGP key to encrypt your token files. This ensures that only Payabli can decrypt the files.
  2. Encrypt each token file individually.
  3. Verify the encryption was successful. You can do this by verifying that the encrypted file has a different extension (.pgp, .gpg, or .asc), is slightly larger than the original, and shows scrambled content when opened in a text editor. Some clients have a built-in verification or test decryption feature.
2

Upload encrypted files

  1. Connect to the SFTP server using your configured client.
  2. Navigate to the designated directory (if specified by the Migrations Team).
  3. Upload your encrypted token files.
  4. Verify the upload completed successfully.
  5. Note the timestamp and file names for your records.

If you have connection issues:

  1. Verify that you entered all connection details correctly.
  2. Check that your firewall allows SFTP connections on the specified port.
  3. Ensure your network allows outbound SFTP traffic.
  4. Contact the Payabli Migrations Team for help if issues persist.

Processor-specific instructions

Find your outgoing processor for instructions.

Stripe

Migrate from Stripe

Authorize.net

Migrate from Authorize.net