The Future Starts Now: What Are Virtual Business Credit Cards?

With technology becoming increasingly important in everyday life, it’s easy to notice the emergence of many new tools and devices created to improve life and make everything more efficient and accessible. One of the latest developments is in the fields of business and finance. With processes becoming increasingly digital-based and concerns over environmentalism and climate change making business owners want to ditch paper as much as possible, most have gravitated increasingly towards internet-based solutions.

Payments, invoices and other procedures related to business finances are among the first to have become automated due to the increased safety and the reduced incidence of human error. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no more room for progress in this industry. One of the most significant is the emergence of virtual business credit cards.

What are virtual business credit cards?

In simple terms, a digital credit card is a unique 16-digit number that is fully online-generated and directly tied to your account. You can use this tool to perform online payments no matter where you are. Corporations have noticed that this technology is particularly useful given the large number of payments that must be processed in a single day, even by a small or medium-sized enterprise.

Fundamentally, they are no different from regular credit cards, with the only exception being that you naturally don’t own a physical copy of it. They include the same information, namely your personal details, expiration date and CVV. When you make an online purchase, they operate in the same way as any other physical card.

Virtual business cards can be created on-demand to be used to settle specific transactions for a set amount or for recurring payments. In this case, the card can be used continuously until the predetermined monthly spending limit is reached.

The main advantages

As for other technological solutions, the first and most important thing is heightened security. Since the virtual card numbers are directly linked to the same bank account, you can use these codes when performing transactions. Doing this adds an extra layer of security, as your traditional credit card numbers aren’t shared with the website you’re using. Some companies even use separate virtual numbers for different stores. Therefore, the same credit card cannot be used anywhere else if a website or platform becomes compromised during a hacker or data breach attack.

There’s also the added bonus of financial processing becoming easier and much more accessible. If you have to interact with a vendor or merchant that is completely new to your business, it’s understandable that you’d be reluctant to share your private payment credentials with them. By using a virtual business card, you will feel secure knowing that even if something does indeed occur, your actual card number is fully protected.

Digital business credit cards also allow you to auto-fill your payment information to save time instead of having to re-enter the card numbers every time.

Into the future

Keeping up with technological developments is one of the best ways for a business to develop and be successful. Since more and more processes are moving in the online sphere, there has been a steady increase in data breach attacks, which are particularly disastrous for the financial well-being of companies and their reputation. Virtual credit cards solve this problem by denying hackers access to vulnerable information. This makes it perhaps one of the most noteworthy technological developments of the last few years.

Virtual business credit cards are a new solution that aims to tackle new problems due to increased reliance on the online space. While the tech is still very new, it has much potential to improve the worldwide business and financial landscapes.