Business entity that is not a payment brand, directly involved in the processing, storage, or transmission of cardholder data (CHD) and/or sensitive authentication data (SAD) on behalf of another entity. This includes payment gateways, payment service providers (PSPs), and independent sales organizations (ISOs). This also includes companies that provide services that control or could impact the security of CHD and/or SAD. Examples include managed service providers that provide managed firewalls, IDS, and other services as well as hosting providers and other entities.
If an entity provides a service that involves only the provision of public network access—such as a telecommunications company providing just the communication link—the entity would not be considered a service provider for that service (although they may be considered a service provider for other services). See Multi-Tenant Service Provider and Third-Party Service Provider.
