Digital bank Revolut is now giving customers ‘disposable’ virtual cards to help stop fraud
The high tech bank will randomly generate new card details every time customers make an online payment in order to help protect their details from fraudsters
CUSTOMERS with smartphone bank Revolut will be able to pay online with "disposable" card details in a bid to help tackle the rise of online fraud.
From today, the bank's app will give you the chance to generate a random set of card details linked to your account which can be used to do your online shopping.
Each time a customer uses the "virtual" card to make a payment, the bank will then automatically destroy those details and generate a new card number, which can then be used for the next purchase.
The boffins at the challenger bank say it's the first time a UK bank has launched disposable cards and are confident it will help crackdown on online card fraud.
Vlad Yatsenko, co-founder and chief technology officer at Revolut, said: "Instead of matching what the larger institutions are doing, we are changing the game entirely by introducing disposable virtual 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.
How to protect yourself from scams
SCAMMERS are becoming increasingly clever to trick customers into transferring them money or giving away their personal information. But there are steps you can take to protect yourself.
- Never give out personal or financial information on the phone or by email. Your bank, the police or any other organisation will never ask you for these in full
- Never allow someone remote access to your computer following a cold call
- Don’t rely on caller ID – numbers can be spoofed by fraudsters to make it look like they’re calling from a trusted number
- Your bank, the police or any other company, will never call to ask you to transfer your money out of your account for security reasons
- Be wary of all cold calls claiming to be from banks, police, or other trusted organisations – if you have any concerns, call back on an independently verified number
- If you have fallen victim to a scam, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040
"And by automating this process, the customer experience is instant and stress-free."
The bank says that across Europe, online card fraud costs consumers a whopping £1.5billion in 2016 - a jump of 9 per cent - with the UK and France making up 73 per cent of all the fraud taking place.
The service will be available to all customers from 7am today.
If customers want to use a generated card number, all they have to do is select the card option in the app and make a payment.
The app will then automatically destroy those details and randomly generate a new set which will be ready to use for your next purchase.
A spokeswoman for the bank added that while the idea wouldn't be great for subscriptions or repeated repayments, using it to make one-off purchases will help improve security.
Last week, it was revealed that Brits were tricked into sending £236million to fraudsters in 2017 alone.
More on money
This week NatWest warned Brits of eight upcoming financial scams that could see you robbed of your cash in 2018 and beyond.
And yesterday the Sun reported on the case of music fan Glyn Tookey who had £3,000 swiped from this debit card while trying to settle a bar bill in Mexico City.
Revolut launched back in 2015.
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