Chargehive Security & Compliance: What Enterprise SaaS COOs Need to Know

Platform decisions at enterprise scale involve more stakeholders than the COO who identifies the operational need. Before a business of meaningful size commits to a platform that will govern its payments, billing, customer data, and support operations, the information security team will ask questions. The legal team will ask questions. The CFO will ask questions. And in regulated industries or markets, the compliance function will ask questions that go beyond the standard security checklist.

This piece is written for that process. It covers what Chargehive's security and compliance posture actually looks like — not at a marketing summary level, but with the specificity that a due diligence conversation requires. If you are the COO preparing for that conversation, or the person tasked with running the vendor assessment, this is the document to start with.

PCI DSS: The Payment Security Foundation

Chargehive is an independently assessed PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider.

PCI DSS — the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — is the security framework that governs how payment card data is handled. Level 1 is the highest certification tier, applicable to service providers processing more than six million card transactions per year, and requires an annual assessment by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) rather than a self-assessment questionnaire.

For SaaS businesses evaluating Chargehive as their payment operations layer, PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider status has a specific and significant implication: the compliance burden associated with handling payment card data is substantially transferred to Chargehive. A merchant using a PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider for their payment processing infrastructure can inherit a significant portion of the PCI DSS control requirements from the service provider's assessment, rather than demonstrating independent compliance for each control.

What this means in practice

Chargehive maintains strong segregation of PCI-scoped systems from non-PCI systems. The infrastructure that processes, transmits, and stores payment card data is architecturally separated from the infrastructure that handles other operational functions — customer data, support, communications, reporting. This segregation is a core PCI DSS requirement and a meaningful security control in its own right: a compromise of the non-PCI infrastructure does not automatically expose payment card data.

Encryption is applied to cardholder data at rest and in transit. Secure transport protocols govern all data transmission. Access controls limit who and what can interact with PCI-scoped systems.

Ongoing vulnerability management is maintained through continuous monitoring, regular vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing cadences consistent with PCI DSS requirements. Security patches are applied on defined schedules against risk-tiered timelines.

Incident response procedures are defined, tested, and maintained. In the event of a security incident affecting PCI-scoped systems, Chargehive has documented response and notification procedures that govern how the incident is contained, investigated, and communicated to affected parties.

Questions your security team will ask

Can Chargehive provide a current Attestation of Compliance (AoC)? Yes. An AoC from Chargehive's Qualified Security Assessor is available under NDA as part of the vendor assessment process.

Does Chargehive store full card numbers (PANs)? This is a question for the detailed technical assessment — the answer depends on the specific integration model and should be confirmed with Chargehive's technical team during the evaluation.

How is the PCI scope defined in a Chargehive implementation? The scope definition depends on the integration architecture. Chargehive's implementation team can walk through the scope implications of specific integration approaches during the technical evaluation.

SOC 2: Operational Security Controls

Chargehive aligns its operational security controls to SOC 2 (Service Organisation Control 2) requirements.

SOC 2 is an auditing framework developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that evaluates a service organisation's controls across five Trust Service Criteria: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. It is the most widely referenced security framework in enterprise SaaS vendor assessments.

SOC 2 alignment means that Chargehive's operational controls are designed and maintained against the SOC 2 Trust Service Criteria. For enterprise buyers, this provides a common reference framework for assessing Chargehive's security posture against the same criteria used to evaluate other vendors in the stack.

What SOC 2 alignment covers

Security (Common Criteria): Controls over logical and physical access to systems, change management, risk assessment, and monitoring. These are the baseline controls that govern who can access what, how changes to systems are managed, and how security risks are identified and addressed.

Availability: Controls that ensure the platform is available for operation as committed. This includes infrastructure redundancy, disaster recovery procedures, and uptime monitoring.

Processing Integrity: Controls that ensure transactions and data processing operations are complete, accurate, timely, and authorised. Particularly relevant for a platform governing payment transactions and billing operations.

Confidentiality: Controls over how confidential information — commercial data, business-sensitive customer data — is protected from unauthorised disclosure.

Privacy: Controls over how personal information is collected, used, retained, and disclosed in accordance with privacy commitments and applicable law.

Questions your security team will ask

Is a SOC 2 Type II report available? This should be confirmed directly with Chargehive during the assessment process. A Type II report covers the design and operating effectiveness of controls over a defined period, rather than a point-in-time assessment.

What is the scope of the SOC 2 assessment — which systems and services are in scope? Confirm with Chargehive's security team during evaluation.

Data Protection and Privacy Law

Chargehive operates in markets governed by multiple overlapping data protection regimes. The compliance posture across each:

UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018

For SaaS businesses operating in the UK, Chargehive processes personal data under the framework established by the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. The key obligations this creates:

Lawful basis for processing. Chargehive processes personal data on behalf of its customers (data controllers) under the contractual necessity and legitimate interests bases applicable to payment processing, billing, and customer operations functions.

Data Processing Agreement (DPA). A Data Processing Agreement governing the terms under which Chargehive processes personal data on behalf of its customers is available and should be executed as part of the commercial agreement. The DPA defines Chargehive's obligations as a data processor, the purposes for which it may process personal data, and the security measures it maintains.

Data subject rights. Chargehive's infrastructure supports the fulfillment of data subject rights — access requests, deletion requests, rectification requests — on a per-customer basis. The technical capability to identify, extract, and delete personal data held in Chargehive's systems in response to a data subject request is part of the platform's operational function.

Data retention. Chargehive maintains data retention policies aligned with applicable legal requirements and with the commercial purposes for which data is processed. Retention periods and deletion schedules are defined in the DPA.

EU GDPR

For SaaS businesses operating in EU markets, Chargehive's processing of personal data is governed by the EU GDPR. The same DPA framework applies, with appropriate Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) governing international data transfers where applicable.

International transfers. Where personal data is transferred from the EU to countries not covered by an adequacy decision, Chargehive implements appropriate safeguards — Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent mechanisms — to ensure the transfer meets EU GDPR requirements.

US Privacy Laws

The US privacy landscape is state-based and evolving. Chargehive aligns to applicable US privacy and breach notification laws, including CCPA/CPRA for California residents and equivalent state-level requirements where applicable.

Breach notification. In the event of a personal data breach, Chargehive has defined procedures for identifying, containing, and notifying affected parties in accordance with applicable notification timelines — 72 hours under GDPR, and state-specific timelines under applicable US law.

Questions your legal team will ask

Is a Data Processing Agreement available? Yes. The DPA should be reviewed by your legal team and executed as part of the commercial agreement with Chargehive.

Where is personal data stored — what regions or jurisdictions? Confirm data residency specifics with Chargehive during the evaluation. For businesses with data residency requirements (EU data stored in the EU, UK data stored in the UK), this should be part of the technical evaluation conversation.

How are data subject requests (DSARs) handled at scale? Chargehive's platform supports DSAR fulfillment operationally. The process for submitting and tracking DSARs should be confirmed during the commercial and technical evaluation.

What happens to personal data upon contract termination? Data deletion and return procedures upon contract termination should be defined in the DPA and confirmed during the legal review.

Access Control and Operational Security

Beyond the certification and regulatory compliance posture, the operational security controls that govern day-to-day platform access are relevant to the enterprise evaluation.

Role-based access control (RBAC). Access to Chargehive's platform is governed by role-based permissions that limit each user's access to the functions and data relevant to their operational role. A support agent does not have access to payment configuration. A billing administrator does not have access to system infrastructure. Permission boundaries are defined at the role level and enforced at the system level.

Audit logging. Actions taken within the platform — configuration changes, data access, administrative operations — are logged with attribution to the user who performed them. Audit logs are available for review and are maintained for defined retention periods consistent with compliance requirements.

Multi-factor authentication. Access to Chargehive's administrative and operational interfaces requires multi-factor authentication.

Subprocessor management. Chargehive uses third-party subprocessors in the delivery of its services — infrastructure providers, payment network connections, and other operational dependencies. A list of subprocessors is maintained and available as part of the DPA. Changes to the subprocessor list are communicated to customers in accordance with the notification procedures defined in the DPA.

What to Bring to the Chargehive Security Conversation

For enterprise SaaS businesses running a formal vendor security assessment, the following materials are typically available from Chargehive under appropriate confidentiality arrangements:

• PCI DSS Level 1 Attestation of Compliance (AoC)

• Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with Standard Contractual Clauses where applicable

• Subprocessor list

• Security overview documentation covering infrastructure architecture, access controls, and incident response

• Penetration testing summary (scope and findings, under NDA)

For questions not addressed in this document — specific infrastructure architecture questions, detailed scope definitions for PCI and SOC 2, data residency specifics, or bespoke compliance requirements relevant to your industry or geography — the right starting point is a direct conversation with Chargehive's technical and legal teams.

The security and compliance posture described here is not a barrier to the conversation. It is the starting point for it.

→ Start the security and compliance conversation with our team: Contact Chargehive