What are virtual card payments?
Today there are more than 100 different ways to pay for goods. Choosing one or another method, the buyer focused on the maximum level of convenience, high security, and speed of payment. All these factors successfully combined in a virtual card. In this article, we will describe this method of payment, which is rapidly gaining popularity.
Why has payment via virtual card become so popular?
It’s not a secret that payment with plastic cards is very insecure but very convenient. Your plastic card can always be stolen or spy your pin code, and withdraw money from ATMs has become very insecure. A virtual card solves many problems because it also has a 16-digit number, but this number is unique and used only for a single transaction. Once this transaction is completed, the card number becomes irrelevant. Not only do you pay for your purchases as safe as possible, but you also save time and reduce the likelihood of errors to almost zero.
Paying by virtual card allows you to conduct transactions and pre-determine the amount you pay without having to use a card in its usual sense. You don’t have to worry about a particular company not being able to accept such a payment. If a company accepts credit card payments, it can easily accept virtual card payment as well.
Advantages of paying with virtual cards
Virtual card payments are recognized not only by ordinary users, but also by executives of large companies. It was among these executives that MasterCard conducted a survey in 2018 regarding their views on virtual cards. All of the executives were nearly unanimous in admitting that virtual payments are one of the safest and most convenient today, but most importantly, they save both time and money.
The largest and best-known credit card providers process transactions with virtual cards as well.
- Using virtual cards, you do not have to worry about security, because you do not have to report your bank account number or disclose any other information, which can be compromised in the future.
However, imagine what will happen if suddenly a person who does not have the best intentions manages to get a virtual card number. Nothing terrible would happen! The thing is that a virtual payment is in any case tied to a specific transaction amount, period, or credit limit, and therefore if the thieves do not have this information, stealing just a virtual card number will be completely useless.
- You can save a lot of your time by using a virtual card.
Because the virtual card is tied to a specific U.S. dollar amount, there is no chance that you could either underpay or overpay. It means that you won’t have to spend time on other transactions.
A significant advantage of virtual card payments over B2B payments using paper checks is the fact that here you won’t need to spend several days printing, stamping, and packaging to send payments onward. Virtual transactions are done very quickly, almost instantly.
With virtual card payments, you can improve your relationship with your suppliers because you could pay their bills much faster. All of this allows you to count on better terms and additional discounts for early payment, reduced processing fees, and additional cash savings.
- Minimal manual labor.
Processing paper checks is very complex and impossible without manual labor. We print it, bag it, stamp it, send it to the post office. All this takes effort and time, unlike virtual payments. The less monotonous functions the company’s accounting department performs, the more time the company’s employees have for more meaningful tasks.
The bottom line
Therefore, virtual card provides a huge number of benefits to your business, from high payment speeds and savings in effort and money, to a higher level of security.