In 2024, 35.5% of global security breaches were linked to a third party. The consequences of that kind of breach can be worse when you work with a payment processor. That’s why security and compliance are nonnegotiable in any payment request for proposal (RFP). Your RFP should ask potential payment providers to establish how they safeguard sensitive data, how quickly they respond to incidents, and how they can help your business meet regulatory requirements.
You need to ask the right questions up front and demand answers with evidence. Below, we’ll discuss all the best practices for asking about security and compliance in payment RFPs.
What’s in this article?
- What security and compliance requirements should be included in every payment RFP?
- How do I write PCI DSS requirements into a payment RFP?
- What basic data protection and privacy questions should you ask vendors?
- How do I evaluate a vendor’s fraud prevention in an RFP?
- What incident response and disaster recovery details should vendors provide?
- How do I ask about global compliance requirements in an RFP?
- What should you require from vendors for encryption, tokenization, and authentication?
- How do I include mobile and in-app payment security requirements in an RFP?
- What reporting and audit capabilities should be requested in a payment RFP?
- What warning signs in vendor RFP responses suggest weak security or compliance?
- How Stripe Payments can help
What security and compliance requirements should be included in every payment RFP?
When you’re constructing a payment RFP, the security and compliance section is where you define the baseline expectations every serious provider should meet for your business. Your RFP should force vendors to demonstrate strong, independently validated security across all of these areas.
Industry certifications and audits
Ask providers to show proof of certifications and audits: the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for card data, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 for information security, and System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type 2 for operational controls. These attest that outside auditors have examined a provider’s practices.
PCI DSS compliance
Require PCI compliance at the highest level relevant for service providers (Level 1). Ask for the provider’s current Attestation of Compliance from a Qualified Security Assessor as formal proof.
Data protection and privacy
Determine how the provider protects all customer information, including personal details, billing addresses, and identifiers. Ask where that data is stored geographically, how it’s encrypted, and how access is controlled. Ensure the provider will sign a data processing agreement and support privacy laws such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Fraud prevention
Query about the provider’s fraud prevention capabilities. Does it use machine learning, rules engines, and 3D Secure authentication? How does it balance stopping fraud with keeping approval rates high? Its RFP response should give you confidence that it can help reduce chargebacks and fraud losses without frustrating legitimate customers.
Incident response and disaster recovery
Every vendor should have a plan for breaches and outages. Ask how the provider will detect and respond to incidents, how quickly it will notify you if your data is involved, and what its key data recovery objectives are—Recovery Time Objective (RTO) or Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
Global compliance coverage
If your business is operating internationally, your provider needs to be able to handle local regulations so you don’t get surprised. Require compliance with the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) in Europe, sanctions screening in the US, and data localization rules in countries such as India.
Core data security controls
Clarify your expectations for encryption, tokenization, and authentication. Data should be encrypted in transit and at rest with modern standards, sensitive data should be tokenized so you never touch it directly, and provider systems should enforce strong authentication for internal users.
Mobile and in-app payments
If your business runs on mobile, include requirements specific to that environment. Ask about the security of the provider’s software development kits (SDKs), whether sensitive data bypasses your servers to reduce PCI scope, and how it supports digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Reporting and auditability
Mandate transaction reporting, fraud and dispute analytics, and system audit logs that track administrative actions. You want enough access to your data that you can run your own audits and meet your own compliance obligations.
How do I write PCI DSS requirements into a payment RFP?
PCI DSS is the global rule book for card data. In your RFP, PCI compliance should read like a contract clause. Demand Level 1 certification with proof and ensure the provider commits to staying compliant as the standard develops.
Here’s how to assure that your RFP language leaves no room for confusion or misinterpretation:
Be explicit about level and proof: State that the provider must be PCI Level 1 certified. That is the gold standard proof of compliance.
Insist on ongoing compliance: Ask how the provider will adapt to changing PCI DSS requirements. You can say, “Confirm that you maintain PCI compliance for the life of the contract and explain how you adapt to new PCI DSS versions.” The answer should mention annual audits, quarterly scans, and ongoing monitoring.
Clarify shared responsibilities: Discuss which PCI obligations fall on you. For example, ask, “Which PCI DSS requirements remain our responsibility and how do you support us in meeting them?” Look for providers that help take on the burden, such as by prepopulating PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaires or offering detailed guidance.
What basic data protection and privacy questions should you ask vendors?
Names, addresses, emails, and device IDs are all sensitive information, too. The right provider will be able to tell you exactly where your customers’ data is stored, how it’s protected, how long it’s kept, and what happens if something goes wrong.
Below are the questions worth asking.
Where is the data stored and processed?
Jurisdiction matters. Ask the provider to identify the countries where customer data is stored and whether it offers regional hosting options. A transparent answer will name the locations, explain the legal frameworks that apply, and describe how cross-border transfers are handled.
How is personal data protected?
Encryption, access controls, and monitoring should come up immediately. Ask about the exact methods: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 for data at rest, Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 and up for data in transit, and role-based access with the principle of least privilege. Demand details on audit logs: who accessed which records, when, and for what purpose. You want proof that every touchpoint is tracked.
Which privacy laws do you comply with and what contracts back that up?
The provider should be explicit about GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant laws. Require a GDPR-compliant data processing agreement and evidence of how the provider handles data subject rights such as access and deletion. If it holds certifications or participates in recognized frameworks, that’s worth including in the evaluation.
What is your retention and deletion policy?
Ask how long the provider keeps transaction and personal data and what processes exist to delete or anonymize it. Look for structured policies: specific time frames for retention, automated purges, and the ability to fulfill deletion requests quickly.
Who are your subprocessors and how are they vetted?
If the provider relies on cloud providers or third parties, it should disclose which ones they are and demonstrate that those partners are held to the same standards. Strong answers will describe due diligence, contractual obligations, and certifications for subprocessors.
What is the breach notification process?
Request the provider’s written policy for incident reporting. Ask about timelines (within how many hours you’ll be informed of a breach) and what details it’ll share. The best answers include specifics on communication channels and post-incident reporting with remediation steps.
How do I evaluate a vendor’s fraud prevention in an RFP?
Every fraud incident that isn’t caught can reduce revenue and damage customer trust. Every false positive that blocks a legitimate transaction can cost you a sale. When discussing fraud prevention, the right vendor should be specific: for example, the provider might mention machine learning models built on billions of data points, configurable dashboards, concrete fraud rates, and built-in authentication flows. The provider should also acknowledge the balance between fraud prevention and conversion—and show how it can help you manage.
Here’s what you need to determine.
Fraud detection systems
Ask vendors to explain their fraud detection systems in detail. Search for a provider with a layered approach: machine learning trained on a large dataset, configurable rules, device fingerprinting, velocity checks, and behavioral signals. The best providers combine automated scoring with options for manual review and feedback loops. If a provider mentions consortium data (i.e., signals gathered across many businesses), that’s a sign its models are learning from a wide field beyond your own transactions.
Stripe, for example, has advanced fraud detection, and there’s a 92% chance any card has been seen before on the Stripe network, providing richer data for fraud assessments. Stripe also securely shares fraud scores to help issuers make more accurate authorization decisions.
Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)
Fraud control ties directly into authentication. Require a vendor to describe how it supports methods such as 3D Secure, one-time passcodes, and biometric checks. For businesses that operate in Europe, this is a PSD2 requirement. Even outside Europe, advanced authentication is necessary for high-risk or suspicious transactions. The ideal provider can enable these flows without making you build them yourself.
Tracked metrics
Ask for metrics such as fraud rates, chargeback ratios, false positive rates, and approval rates. Find a provider that can balance these metrics: high approval rates paired with low fraud and minimal friction. If the provider offers chargeback protection or liability shift programs, that shows confidence in its system. But you still need to understand how providers get their results.
Ability to customize
Each business has its own risk tolerance. Some might want the maximum conversion rate even if it means more disputes; others might be willing to challenge more customers to reduce fraud. Ask whether you can customize fraud rules, adjust risk thresholds, and allow or block certain scenarios. Strong providers provide dashboards where you can write rules such as, “Flag transactions over $5,000 from a new customer,” and, “Require 3D Secure for all first-time orders from X country.” That flexibility is a sign of maturity.
Stripe, for example, offers an easy, flexible integration experience with technical documentation, developer-friendly APIs, customization options, low- and no-code tools, embedded components, and Stripe-managed risk.
Protection across methods
Every payment method—from digital wallets to buy now, pay later—carries a risk of fraud. Your RFP should ask providers how they monitor these methods. Do they verify bank accounts, screen payout recipients against sanctions lists, or detect account takeovers? A provider that only addresses card fraud might leave you exposed elsewhere.
Dispute handling
Fraud prevention and dispute management are closely tied. Ask providers how they support chargeback responses: do they automatically compile evidence, provide dispute alerts, or offer analytics on root causes? Even the best systems won’t catch everything, so their ability to limit the impact when fraud does happen matters, too.
What incident response and disaster recovery details should vendors provide?
The way a provider prepares for breaches and outages can tell you a lot about its maturity. It should have a tested incident response plan, fast breach notification, measurable recovery objectives, resilient infrastructure, and a communication protocol that keeps your business informed. Timelines, metrics, and test frequency signal preparedness.
Here’s what you’ll want to know:
Incident response plans: Ask providers how they handle security incidents. A strong answer will reference a formal plan for detection, containment, investigation, and recovery. The best vendors test these plans through regular drills or tabletop exercises, and update them after real incidents. Your partner should have a team trained on the process.
Breach communication: Demand specifics. For example: “Within how many hours will you inform us of a confirmed breach? What details will you provide?” Strong providers should commit to a clear window (e.g., 24–72 hours) and explain the information they’ll share—scope, data affected, remediation steps, and ongoing updates. Request clarity on escalation paths and points of contact as well. For instance, who will call you, how often, and through what channel? Will they share a root cause analysis after the event? Your provider should treat you as a partner in recovery.
Disaster recovery and business continuity plans: Ask about RTO and RPO. These metrics define how quickly systems come back online and how much data could be lost. Assess concrete numbers and evidence of geographic redundancy (e.g., multiple data centers, alternative cloud regions). Vendors that can’t provide these details might not have tested their plans.
Backup infrastructure: Ask about backup generators, multiple internet providers, automatic failover mechanisms, and continual backups. How often does the provider test its failover processes? Some providers publish postmortems after outages to show accountability; transparency of that caliber is a sign of confidence.
How do I ask about global compliance requirements in an RFP?
If your business operates in multiple markets (or plans to), your RFP must confirm whether a provider can keep you compliant everywhere you have customers. The strongest providers will treat compliance as part of their products: they might mention automation regarding PSD2, concrete privacy practices, sanctions checks built into payouts, and a catalog of licenses that covers the markets you care about.
Here’s what you need to ask about to determine whether compliance is incorporated at the level you need.
PSD2 and SCA
The EU’s PSD2 mandate requires SCA for most electronic payments. Ask providers, “How do you handle PSD2 requirements, including SCA? How do you manage exemptions?” A credible vendor will confirm it automatically applies SCA when required and refines exemptions (e.g., low-value purchases, trusted beneficiaries, recurring payments) to remove unnecessary obstacles. It should automate these exemptions rather than leave you to code them yourself.
Data protection and GDPR
Every region has privacy laws. Your RFP should require providers to explain how they comply with GDPR, CCPA, and other data protection regulations. Ask where customer data is stored, whether regional hosting options exist, and which mechanisms they use for cross-border transfers (e.g., EU-US Data Privacy Framework, Standard Contractual Clauses). Mandate a GDPR-compliant data processing agreement as part of the contract. Find providers that can show certifications, audits, or independent validations of their privacy postures.
Sanctions screening
In many countries, sanctions compliance is mandatory. For example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforces sanctions in the US. Missing sanctions checks can lead to fines and reputational damage. Ask providers, “What sanctions screening do you perform (e.g., OFAC, EU, UN)? How do you block or flag restricted transactions? Describe your sanctions screening process, including which lists you check and how often they update.” Strong answers describe automated screening at the transaction and payout levels, continual list updates, and procedures for handling matches.
Regional regulations and localization
Different regions have their own rules, and your RFP should ensure that you’ll be covered. Ask providers, “Which regional compliance obligations do you support directly and how do you help us meet them?” The best providers will show that they track regional rules actively.
Licensing and regulatory oversight
Determine whether providers hold the proper licenses or registrations in key markets. This determines who bears regulatory responsibility and whether your payments can flow without interruption. Ask providers to list the regulatory licenses they hold and which regions they cover.
What should you require from vendors for encryption, tokenization, and authentication?
If a provider can’t describe how it encrypts, tokenizes, and restricts access, you don’t need to keep reading its proposal. You should see details: the provider should be able to name encryption standards, explain tokenization flows, describe single sign-on (SSO) and multifactor authentication (MFA) in detail, restrict application programming interface (API) keys, and mention webhook signatures.
Here are the features your RFP should explicitly address.
Encryption
Require end-to-end encryption for payment data, both in transit and at rest. State that clearly—TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 for data in motion and AES-256 or equivalent for data at rest. Ask providers to explain how they manage keys: do they use hardware security modules, rotate keys on a defined schedule, and protect them with separation of duties? Encryption is only as strong as the key management behind it.
Tokenization
Tokenization removes raw card numbers from your environment and replaces them with random tokens that only the provider’s systems can resolve. Make this a requirement; for example, you could say, “Cardholder data must be tokenized so that our systems never see or store raw data.” Ask how the provider’s vault is secured and whether tokens can be reused for recurring charges, subscriptions, or refunds.
Authentication and access control
Ask the provider to describe how it secures access to its platform and API. MFA should be mandatory for any administrative access to dashboards. SSO integration with your corporate identity provider is a plus. Demand details on role-based access and audit trails: can you assign different levels of access to different team members and can you track who did what and when? For APIs, look for controls that ensure only authorized systems are communicating, such as scoped keys, ephemeral tokens, and webhook signing.
Customer-facing authentication
Fraud prevention often connects back to authentication. The provider should explain how it supports 3D Secure, biometric authentication in digital wallets, and other intensive checks when transactions appear risky or when regulations demand them.
How do I include mobile and in-app payment security requirements in an RFP?
An RFP should show that your provider’s mobile integrations protect card data just as rigorously as web or point-of-sale environments, including specifics about how card data flows in the SDK, assurances that sensitive information never touches the app, built-in wallet support, and evidence of proactive security testing. Mobile payments can be just as secure as any other channel, but only if the provider’s integrations are designed with them in mind.
Here’s where to focus the questions in your RFP:
PCI-compliant SDKs: Ask providers whether their iOS and Android SDKs are validated for PCI compliance. Strong SDKs never let raw card data touch your app; they encrypt it on the device and send it straight to the provider’s secure servers, returning only a token.
Wallet and platform support: Require providers to support digital wallets (e.g., Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) and to explain how tokens generated on the device flow through their systems. Strong providers will emphasize that real card numbers never leave the customer’s device and that biometric authentication is handled by the wallet itself. This is one of the safest payment methods available.
Device and app protections: Ask how the SDK handles compromised environments. For example, does it detect jailbroken or rooted devices, prevent sensitive data from being logged, and protect keys stored on the phone? The right answer will describe safeguards such as certificate pinning, restricted storage, and runtime checks that block payments in unsafe conditions.
Updates and testing: Require providers to explain how often they update their SDKs for security patches and how they test for vulnerabilities, as mobile environments can develop quickly. Search for a cadence of regular penetration testing and commitments to publish updates when new iOS or Android versions roll out.
What reporting and audit capabilities should be requested in a payment RFP?
Finance, security, and compliance teams use reporting and audit tools to prove controls are working, to reconcile money, and to respond when regulators ask hard questions. Providers that take reporting seriously should describe dashboards, APIs, customizable reports, audit trails, compliance certifications, and alerts in concrete terms—with specifics about retention periods, formats, and integrations. An RFP should reveal whether a provider can give you real visibility or not.
Here are the features you should ask to know more about.
Transaction and financial reporting
What reporting is available for transactions, settlements, refunds, disputes, and fees? What is the format of reports and can you customize them by filters such as date range, geography, and payment method? Look for real-time dashboards and APIs that let you pull granular data into your own systems. If your finance team can’t easily reconcile payouts against bank deposits, everything downstream can get harder.
Audit logs of system activity
A mature platform tracks every sensitive action: logins, permission changes, API key generation, refunds issued, and settings updated. Mandate detailed audit logs for both system events and user activity. Ask how long logs are retained and whether they’re immutable. The ability to trace exactly who did what and when is nonnegotiable when you’re facing an internal audit or investigating suspicious activity.
Support for external compliance audits
Your own auditors could ask for proof that your payment provider is doing what it claims to be doing. Ask providers to describe what documentation they make available (e.g., SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO certifications, PCI DSS attestations) and how those reports are shared. Some might offer them under nondisclosure agreements; others might have customer portals.
Real-time monitoring and alerts
Strong providers should have configurable alerts or webhooks that notify you of anomalies in real time, such as a surge in chargebacks, an unusual cluster of declines, or an upward trend in API error rates. Teams can’t respond quickly without early warning systems, and your RFP should clarify that visibility into live metrics is a requirement.
Data accessibility and retention
You might need several years’ worth of transaction histories and audit trails to satisfy financial regulators. Ask vendors, “How long are reports and audit logs retained? Can we export and archive them for our own compliance requirements?” A good answer commits to multiyear retention, with simple ways to export or sync the data into your own warehouse.
What warning signs in vendor RFP responses suggest weak security or compliance?
RFPs are as much about spotting what’s missing as they are about evaluating what’s written. Effective providers will give you clear answers, backed by specifics and evidence—anything less is reason to slow down and investigate further before you move forward.
Here are the main warning signs to watch for when you assess RFPs:
Vague language: If a response relies on phrases such as “state-of-the-art security” without naming actual standards, protocols, or certifications, that suggests the vendor can’t or won’t provide details. A serious provider will reference PCI DSS, SOC 2, ISO 27001, specific encryption methods, and concrete processes.
Lack of independent validation: Vendors that process payments should have external audits. If one isn’t PCI certified or can’t provide SOC or ISO reports, find another that has these certifications.
Unclear incident response plans: An RFP should show concrete time frames and tested plans for breach notifications in addition to documented recovery plans. If the provider hedges with something like, “We’ll notify customers as appropriate,” you have no guarantee of timely communication when it matters most.
Responsibility shift: Monitor for responses that push important obligations back onto your team (e.g., “We provide tools, but compliance is the business’s job”). You’ll always have responsibilities, but a strong provider shares the burden and provides clear support.
Outdated practices: References to weak or obsolete standards (e.g., MD5 for password hashing, older PCI versions) signal that security hasn’t kept pace. You should expect modern encryption, MFA for administrative access, and alignment with the current PCI DSS.
Contradictions or overpromising: Inconsistencies across answers (e.g., claiming data is never stored while saying it’s encrypted at rest) suggest carelessness or poor internal communication. Guarantees of “zero fraud” or “100% uptime” without evidence are equally suspect.
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