Definition
Virtual Card
A virtual card is a digitally generated card number, linked to your real card or account, used for online payments to limit exposure of your primary card details.
A virtual card gives you a separate card number — sometimes single-use or with custom spend limits and expiry — that you can use online while keeping your physical card number private. If a virtual number is compromised, you can cancel just that one.
Banks and fintechs issue virtual cards instantly through their apps, often for online shopping, subscriptions or specific merchants. Some let you freeze, set limits per transaction, or restrict a card to one merchant.
Virtual cards complement tokenisation as a privacy and fraud-control tool, and are also used to issue corporate cards quickly to employees without physical plastic.
Related terms
- Payment Gateway (PG)A payment gateway is the technology layer that securely transmits a customer's payment details from a merchant's checkout to the banks and networks that authorise the transaction.
- RuPayRuPay is India's home-grown card payment network, built by NPCI, that powers debit, credit and prepaid cards as a domestic alternative to international networks.
- Tokenisation of CardsCard tokenisation replaces your actual card number stored by merchants with a unique, device- or merchant-specific token, so real card details are never saved or exposed online.
Plain-English explainer from The Dispatch Investors Encyclopedia. General information, not financial advice.