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Is that something that new? My bank (Itaú, in Brazil) offers this option for some time now. Here(in portuguese): https://www.itau.com.br/cartoes/cartao-virtual

by soneca 11y ago

Is that something that new? My bank (Itaú, in Brazil) offers this option for some time now. Here(in portuguese): https://www.itau.com.br/cartoes/cartao-virtual/ https://www.itau.com.br/cartoes/cartao-virtual/ Or am I missing something? Edit: They launched it in 2002: http://exame2.com.br/mobile/tecnologia/noticias/itau-agora-tem-cartao-virtual-m0075912 http://exame2.com.br/mobile/tecnologia/noticias/itau-agora-t... Edit2: Sounds new in the US. This is not supposed to be a bragging/snarky comment. Just genuinely surprised as innovation usually come the other way around, from US to Brazil. So Congrats on the launch! Good job, sounds tough to launch it not being a Bank!

ajkjk 11y ago
I've never heard of anything like this in the US. So I think it is new here, at least.
- gervase 11y ago
  A few credit card companies offered this in the mid-2000s (Providian and Citi, possibly more), but it seems to have fallen out of favor in the intervening time. I liked to have it as an option, so I'm glad it's making a comeback.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Citi offers this, and I believe bank of America as well. Blur from Abine.com has an almost identical system to the one described here.
- brobinson 11y ago
  Discover had "online card numbers" like this back in 2010. I'm not sure when they were originally introduced, though.
- cowsandmilk 11y ago
  Since no one has mentioned it, American Express had Private Payments from 2000-2004, which generated one-time credit card numbers that the merchant could charge for up to a month.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
harshreality 11y ago
Bank of America offers this as "ShopSafe", but it's buried on the BoA credit card account page and it's a flash app. It's also not available from the BoA mobile app, at least not last I looked.
- hyperliner 11y ago
  I came here to say this. It's really a great service, but it is not available for the iPhone (Flash) so I always have to use it on my laptop (trade one problem for another) which is kind of a pain. But I do use it all the time and highly recommended especially to avoid having to cancel subscriptions. People are surprised when I point it at them because it is almost as if BoA does not want you to use it. Check the right side bar towards the bottom.
  - azinman2 11y ago
    Ya I've been thinking about reverse-engineering it to write something like the privacy extension for a while... nice to see someone else put in the work!
- lvs 11y ago
  It was originally offered by MBNA, and it hasn't had any development since BofA bought them. It appears almost purposefully impossible to find.
alogray 11y ago
Not really - Paypal was doing it via their browser toolbar ages ago, back when toolbars were still a thing. They stopped offering this functionality back in 2009, I think. That said, it's not particularly common at US banks despite being a horrifically useful feature (Bank of America has it, but I'm not aware of anyone else). I'm excited that I can hop on and use Privacy but it seems like it's more of a feature than a product.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Virtual cards from Citi and masked cards from Abine.com
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    Virtual citi cards are nice in theory, but the web app to make them it pretty cumbersome to use, and the desktop app to do it just feels super icky. They also have short expiration limits, so it's not great to use for subscriptions where you ideally set and forget. Edit: the web app for Citi was also a flash app last time I checked (few months ago). That plus them not supporting 2FA for every login makes me not use it.
Shivetya 11y ago
isn't this similar to ShopSafe by Bank of America, Citi has something too.
sundvor 11y ago
Yeah, the TWiET podcast made a big deal recently about how chips are finally making their way to their cards. I couldn't help but laugh. IIRC, Norway had those since the late 80s. And in Australia, Paypass/Paywave is near ubiquitous now. I think the US is way behind in their banking infrastructure.
- narrowrail 11y ago
  I used to work at the largest merchant acquirer in the US and it's funny to see people claim these features just now making it to the US were signs of innovation lacking within the US. However, the reason these features were necessary outside the US is because the risk model was more severe outside the US; there was no need to implement them here. I have a presentation from Mastercard somewhere from 2006 that showed the dates for mandatory chip&PIN around the world the didn't include the US b/c we didn't need it. At the same time, I had flip phones on my desk from Motorola and Samsung with NFC integrated. Edit to add: This is not a tech issue, it is politics and the like.
  - girvo 11y ago
    Weird, because most of the data I can find shows that the US has one of the highest rates credit card fraud in the developed world. Australia being very far down the list typically, and yet we got chip & pin and Paywave/Paypass well before most other places
    - narrowrail 11y ago
      Before the internet, and before its pervasiveness (~2010), all, then most, of the credit card transactions were 'card-present.' The US still leads in fraud prevention for 'card-present' transactions. The US was optimized for these transactions, so the internet has been a bit of a hassle and or opportunity (e.g. paypal).
  - fantispug 11y ago
    Paywave/Paypass is about convenience, rather than security. It is less secure than chip and pin. Fraud was a lower risk to credit card companies in America because [1] they were better at detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions, and were better at passing on the costs of fraud to retailers and consumers. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/economist-explains-18 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/ec...
lambda 11y ago
This has been around in the US for quite a while in various forms, but it seems like it has never really caught on.
- NO_CHANGE 11y ago
  I used to make new virtual numbers from Wamu for each online transaction, setting $ and time limits. Only later did I read that those "one-time" numbers could be charged more than once and the expiration dates didn't matter. That's why I skip this extra useless step these days.
  - BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
    That still gets you the ability to figure out who leaked your card number, and presumably a way to manually revoke the number without hosing the whole card.
pfarnsworth 11y ago
AMEX has this almost 20 years ago but they stopped it for some reason. I personally loved the feature.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  Yeah, I was a user. It was called Private Payments and went back at least as far as 2000. Here's an interesting article from 2000 [1], declaring it basically unnecessary because cards were safe in transit. Some of the quotes and rationale are hilarious. Definitely from the pre-breach-of-the-month era. [1] http://www.forbes.com/2000/09/08/mu4.html http://www.forbes.com/2000/09/08/mu4.html
rtpg 11y ago
A lot of banks offer it through some sort of thing in their website or app, I think here the UX is a lot nicer though.
neya 11y ago
I agree, even some of the Indian banks have had this feature for sometime now. For example: http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-measures/netsafe http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-me...
neya 11y ago
I agree, even some of the Indian banks have had this feature for sometime now. For example: http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-measures/netsafe http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-me...
nmat 11y ago
In Portugal we have had this service for many years and it works regardless of the bank (https://www.mbnet.pt https://www.mbnet.pt in portuguese). Most people I know always generate one of these cards for online shopping, it's safer and easier to control.
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  That's indeed true! Although you still have the limitation of only being able to generate virtual credit cards of the same type of your "parent/real" credit card. For instance, with a Maestro/Mastercard you cannot generate virtual VISA's.
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  I wonder if 'ma' would stand for Manuel Alves... that would've been funny :)
Splines 11y ago
High level question about virtual cards and the implication of their implementation: 16 digits doesn't seem like a very high number of available cards, especially since at least two of those numbers are reserved (checksum and IIN number). At some point numbers are going to be recycled, right? Or am I massively underestimating the # of credit cards out in the world? It seems like if a large # of people get a new # for every transaction that it would use up the available namespace pretty quickly.
- ARolek 11y ago
  I believe expiration date plays into the possible combos. I'm not sure if CVC does.
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    You only need the PAN to charge the card, and many banks will gladly accept charges on expired cards even if provided with an expiration date in the past.
unicornporn 11y ago
I know at least one Swedish bank has been providing this service forever too. They call it "e-kort" or "e-card".
pbreit 11y ago
Disposable and merchant-specific card numbers have been around for decades but never gained much traction. Probably because the meager benefits do not overcome the poor UX.
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  I think it may be related with more difficulties on tracking what you're shopping (likes) and more hassle on setting them up for every thing you buy (considering disposable virtual credit cards), which more likely will keep you away from buying instinctively and is not the desired outcome.

by soneca 11y ago

ajkjk 11y ago

I've never heard of anything like this in the US. So I think it is new here, at least.

gervase 11y ago
A few credit card companies offered this in the mid-2000s (Providian and Citi, possibly more), but it seems to have fallen out of favor in the intervening time. I liked to have it as an option, so I'm glad it's making a comeback.
ikeboy 11y ago
Citi offers this, and I believe bank of America as well. Blur from Abine.com has an almost identical system to the one described here.
brobinson 11y ago
Discover had "online card numbers" like this back in 2010. I'm not sure when they were originally introduced, though.
cowsandmilk 11y ago
Since no one has mentioned it, American Express had Private Payments from 2000-2004, which generated one-time credit card numbers that the merchant could charge for up to a month.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

harshreality 11y ago

Bank of America offers this as "ShopSafe", but it's buried on the BoA credit card account page and it's a flash app. It's also not available from the BoA mobile app, at least not last I looked.

hyperliner 11y ago
I came here to say this. It's really a great service, but it is not available for the iPhone (Flash) so I always have to use it on my laptop (trade one problem for another) which is kind of a pain. But I do use it all the time and highly recommended especially to avoid having to cancel subscriptions. People are surprised when I point it at them because it is almost as if BoA does not want you to use it. Check the right side bar towards the bottom.
- azinman2 11y ago
  Ya I've been thinking about reverse-engineering it to write something like the privacy extension for a while... nice to see someone else put in the work!
lvs 11y ago
It was originally offered by MBNA, and it hasn't had any development since BofA bought them. It appears almost purposefully impossible to find.

alogray 11y ago

Not really - Paypal was doing it via their browser toolbar ages ago, back when toolbars were still a thing. They stopped offering this functionality back in 2009, I think. That said, it's not particularly common at US banks despite being a horrifically useful feature (Bank of America has it, but I'm not aware of anyone else). I'm excited that I can hop on and use Privacy but it seems like it's more of a feature than a product.

ikeboy 11y ago
Virtual cards from Citi and masked cards from Abine.com
- seanp2k2 11y ago
  Virtual citi cards are nice in theory, but the web app to make them it pretty cumbersome to use, and the desktop app to do it just feels super icky. They also have short expiration limits, so it's not great to use for subscriptions where you ideally set and forget. Edit: the web app for Citi was also a flash app last time I checked (few months ago). That plus them not supporting 2FA for every login makes me not use it.

Shivetya 11y ago

isn't this similar to ShopSafe by Bank of America, Citi has something too.

sundvor 11y ago

Yeah, the TWiET podcast made a big deal recently about how chips are finally making their way to their cards. I couldn't help but laugh. IIRC, Norway had those since the late 80s. And in Australia, Paypass/Paywave is near ubiquitous now. I think the US is way behind in their banking infrastructure.

narrowrail 11y ago
I used to work at the largest merchant acquirer in the US and it's funny to see people claim these features just now making it to the US were signs of innovation lacking within the US. However, the reason these features were necessary outside the US is because the risk model was more severe outside the US; there was no need to implement them here. I have a presentation from Mastercard somewhere from 2006 that showed the dates for mandatory chip&PIN around the world the didn't include the US b/c we didn't need it. At the same time, I had flip phones on my desk from Motorola and Samsung with NFC integrated. Edit to add: This is not a tech issue, it is politics and the like.
- girvo 11y ago
  Weird, because most of the data I can find shows that the US has one of the highest rates credit card fraud in the developed world. Australia being very far down the list typically, and yet we got chip & pin and Paywave/Paypass well before most other places
  - narrowrail 11y ago
    Before the internet, and before its pervasiveness (~2010), all, then most, of the credit card transactions were 'card-present.' The US still leads in fraud prevention for 'card-present' transactions. The US was optimized for these transactions, so the internet has been a bit of a hassle and or opportunity (e.g. paypal).
- fantispug 11y ago
  Paywave/Paypass is about convenience, rather than security. It is less secure than chip and pin. Fraud was a lower risk to credit card companies in America because [1] they were better at detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions, and were better at passing on the costs of fraud to retailers and consumers. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/economist-explains-18 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/ec...

lambda 11y ago

This has been around in the US for quite a while in various forms, but it seems like it has never really caught on.

NO_CHANGE 11y ago
I used to make new virtual numbers from Wamu for each online transaction, setting $ and time limits. Only later did I read that those "one-time" numbers could be charged more than once and the expiration dates didn't matter. That's why I skip this extra useless step these days.
- BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
  That still gets you the ability to figure out who leaked your card number, and presumably a way to manually revoke the number without hosing the whole card.

pfarnsworth 11y ago

AMEX has this almost 20 years ago but they stopped it for some reason. I personally loved the feature.

unclebucknasty 11y ago
Yeah, I was a user. It was called Private Payments and went back at least as far as 2000. Here's an interesting article from 2000 [1], declaring it basically unnecessary because cards were safe in transit. Some of the quotes and rationale are hilarious. Definitely from the pre-breach-of-the-month era. [1] http://www.forbes.com/2000/09/08/mu4.html http://www.forbes.com/2000/09/08/mu4.html

rtpg 11y ago

A lot of banks offer it through some sort of thing in their website or app, I think here the UX is a lot nicer though.

neya 11y ago

I agree, even some of the Indian banks have had this feature for sometime now. For example: http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-measures/netsafe http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/making-payments/security-me...

neya 11y ago

nmat 11y ago

In Portugal we have had this service for many years and it works regardless of the bank (https://www.mbnet.pt https://www.mbnet.pt in portuguese). Most people I know always generate one of these cards for online shopping, it's safer and easier to control.

vmateixeira 11y ago
That's indeed true! Although you still have the limitation of only being able to generate virtual credit cards of the same type of your "parent/real" credit card. For instance, with a Maestro/Mastercard you cannot generate virtual VISA's.
vmateixeira 11y ago
I wonder if 'ma' would stand for Manuel Alves... that would've been funny :)

Splines 11y ago

High level question about virtual cards and the implication of their implementation: 16 digits doesn't seem like a very high number of available cards, especially since at least two of those numbers are reserved (checksum and IIN number). At some point numbers are going to be recycled, right? Or am I massively underestimating the # of credit cards out in the world? It seems like if a large # of people get a new # for every transaction that it would use up the available namespace pretty quickly.

ARolek 11y ago
I believe expiration date plays into the possible combos. I'm not sure if CVC does.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  You only need the PAN to charge the card, and many banks will gladly accept charges on expired cards even if provided with an expiration date in the past.

unicornporn 11y ago

I know at least one Swedish bank has been providing this service forever too. They call it "e-kort" or "e-card".

pbreit 11y ago

Disposable and merchant-specific card numbers have been around for decades but never gained much traction. Probably because the meager benefits do not overcome the poor UX.

vmateixeira 11y ago
I think it may be related with more difficulties on tracking what you're shopping (likes) and more hassle on setting them up for every thing you buy (considering disposable virtual credit cards), which more likely will keep you away from buying instinctively and is not the desired outcome.