Revolut has launched disposable virtual cards to help improve the security of online transactions.

Each time a Premium customer makes an online payment with a Disposable Virtual Card, systems will instantly detect the transaction and automatically destroy those card details, generating new ones that will appear directly in the Revolut app.

Each customer is allowed to create 1 Disposable Card per account and these will work for up to five payments per day. They will not work with subscription services, or any other type of recurring payment, since the card details will renew after every payment.

The move is specifically designed to tackle Card Not Present (CNP) transaction fraud, where criminals position themselves between customer and merchant while a card is used online, in order to copy details. Once these have been collected, the hacker can then clone them onto a physical card or simply use them to pay for purchases.

Vlad Yatsenko, co-founder at Revolut, said that while FinTech firms generally offer a better service than traditional banks, they still have a long way to go in order to build trust and confidence with consumers.

“Instead of matching what the larger institutions are doing, we are changing the game entirely by introducing disposable virtual cards and promoting existing features such as location-based security and the ability to freeze/unfreeze cards.

“It will take approximately 800 years before we begin to run out of 16-digit card numbers, so we view disposable virtual cards as a sustainable, long-term solution to tackling online card fraud,” he added.

Share Story: