US Patent 10318932 Payment card processing system with structure preserving encryption

A customer may provide a merchant with primary account number information in connection with a purchase transaction. The merchant may send an associated authorization request to a payment card processor. A tokenization server at the payment card processor may generate a token corresponding to the primary account number. To secure the token, the token may be encrypted at the payment card processor using a cryptographic key shared with the merchant. A structure preserving encryption algorithm may be used in encrypting the token. A processor identifier may be embedded in the encrypted version of the token during the structure preserving encryption operation. The merchant can use the shared key to decrypt the token and extract the processor identifier. A settlement request may be directed to the processor from the merchant to settle the transaction using the processor identifier.