Storing Credit Card Information

Hi,
I busy writing this documentation for a pseudo web application as part of applying for a job.
One part involves user's to pay money online.
Got two questions actually. Please bear with me as my online payment exprerience are limited.
1) What ways are there to pay online? (I basically know u can use a credit card and Paypal accounts. All credit cards require one supply the same information right?)
2)Is it legal to store a user's credit card information encrypted in the database? I was thinking that user's can create accounts, and next time they logged in, and want to pay money, they dont have to wast time filling in card numbers, expiracy dates etc.

Bottom line is that as "users" (organizations, individuals) will be donating money, not buying anything, I want it to be as easy and simple as can get.

Any advice welcome as usual.

accidently double posted..pls reply here

I moved this because I think you'll get more answers on the credit card topic here.


Many sites do store your credit card details; however, I believe you must explicitly notify the user that you are doing so, if only out of sheer principle.

2. I dont think its illegal but it will have to be strong encryption and you may need a security cetificate from someone like verisign

I hate my kind of memory...remember everything, but only a bit of it.

I really recall someone mentioning that by law you can only store such information for a certain period of time.

Nevermind, not that big a deal. Thanks anyhow for the input anyhow.