PCI-PAL vs processor-native vaults
A person comparing PCI-PAL with a large processor's own vault or hosted payment fields is deciding whether secure card capture should come from a separate company or from the card processor itself.
PCI-PAL
70 / 100
Best for
Enterprises and CCaaS vendors that want secure capture that works with any processor, across many gateways and communications platforms.
Processor-native vaults
Not reviewed here
Best for
Merchants that run everything through one large processor and can use that processor's hosted card fields or vault.
Watch-out
A processor's own vault can be cheaper or simpler for a merchant that will only ever use that one processor, but it makes switching processors harder later.
Bottom line
Choose PCI-PAL when the buyer needs coverage across phone and messaging channels and wants to keep its choice of gateway open. Choose a processor's own vault when checkout runs entirely on one processor's tools and phone payments are not needed.