Virtual Cards for re-routing card payments

johannes

Sadly the re-routing feature got removed, but bunq is working on a new solution about this.
I came up with an (kind of old) idea about this:

Virtual Cards.

It is sooo simple, but just imagine having a virtual card for each bank account at bunq. Instead of manually re-route every merchant, you just use your virtual card for your online payments account at the merchant.

If the merchant changes the name he uses for payments, there is no problem - as he still uses the same virtual card for your "online payments" account.

And I don't know if I am alone here, but I personally would love to keep my online payments and offline payments separated, but currently I would need to "waste" one of my 3 physical cards for it.
This physical card would stay at home and would never be used for something offline.. for me this would just be "wasting" plastic.

In the US there is a company called Privacy.com (https://privacy.com/) - they are providing a virtual card for each website. Yes this would be kind of overkill, but providing a virtual card for each of your bank accounts would be a cool "Privacy.com" like experience - just for Europe.

I don't know what kind of solution bunq has about a new kind of re-routing feature. But I think with virtual cards you could do great thinks to solve many problems.

Especially with Apple Pay and (hopefully in the future) Google Pay (or at least Tap and Pay Mastercard) with much more merchants accepting it you don't need that much physical cards. Some banks are also already working on ATMs with NFC :)

Roeshimi

@johannes#49472 I second this, and third and fourth. I would love to see this. It's even better than the re-routing, which was in place before

yllwfsh

@johannes#49472 Fully agree. This would make bunq so much more awesome! You have my hi-five.

YellowLabel

Agree! 🙌 Would be a good solution to the removal of rerouting of payments

Tim

I do agree on the point that bunq should bring back this feature one way or another, but I'm pretty sure they already agreed with us on that point.

To reply on your idea (use-case), I'm personally not a big fan of multiple virtual cards to be honest. Maybe 1 extra virtual Mastercard with the old re-route feature would be great, as there is no need for a physical copy. I already have 3 physical cards (+ 1 virtual Apple Pay Maestro) and bombing the cards tab with at least a couple more virtual cards would seriously kill the user experience for me.

Still very excited to see what bunq will bring regarding this feature.

Roeshimi

@Tim#49491 I would not place those virtual cards in the cards tab, but into the account settings. That's where they would belong. The cards tab should be reserved for physical cards

johannes

@Tim#49491 Well this idea isn't just about this exact use case. I just wanted to "show" with my idea, that virtual cards could solve some problems and could be cool, if it's a virtual card per account, if it's just one or two additional virtual cards, .. - that's on bunq.

But of course if they would provide you with a virtual card for each account I wouldn't place them in "cards".

johannes

@Tim#49491 .. and I think privacy.com shows perfectly that there are always ways to do that UI friendly :)

Tim

@johannes#49496

I have to agree, they could probably think of a really nice way to add a virtual card number to every bank account.

Heda

The idea sounds great and I want the re routing feature back but I think having like 25 virtual cards it would totally ruin the app experience. I already have 3 physical plus the one Apple Pay card and it’s already feeling too „crowded“.

johannes

@Lexa-kom-Trikru#49529 Well my idea is not that you have 25 cards in your cards overview of course (and who actually uses the full 25 accounts? o:) - Just imagine this: You want to pay something from your "Online Payments" - Account. You go to your account overview -> Online Payments Account -> Virtual Card Details and there you have the details :) https://privacy.com shows perfectly that you can do that very UI friendly :)

Heda

@johannes#49533 Well I use about 10 of them plus the four cards I already have still makes a lot of cards. 😂 But of course bunq could try to integrate it in a user friendly way.

But what if bunq what handle it like with the cvc code. Instead of having multiple virtual cards you have only one. And in those settings you can just like with the cvc create a new card with just a click of a button. Every card should be only valid for one purchase and then expire. Maybe it’s possible to whitelist merchants with recurring payments. I think this would be a nice approach to it. 🤪

johannes

@Lexa-kom-Trikru#49535 Well would also be an idea :) That's the cool thing here, with virtual cards you can do so much!

Heda

@johannes#49537 Yes totally now it’s on bunq to do what they can do best and give us a feature like this. 🤣😎

Roeshimi

Virtual cards are kind of already here. When you now order a new card you can use it right away. Surely the physical card still gets delivered but if you would leave out that step you had virtual cards

Tim

@Roeshimi#49567

They have been spotted in the wild since March, same for the virtual Tap & Pay card by the way. 🙂

JeroenE

@johannes#49533 The only drawback with a virtual card connected to an account is that you can't switch the card to another account. You could do this in the past because you could set an account for each vendor that debited your card. Also in the past you could limit each vendor separately and you'll loose this when you have more than one vendor on the same card (just like limits on a card are now less usefull unless you want recurring transactions to be denied).

So you'd need a virtual card for each vendor and then you go back to (possibly) having lots of cards.

I'm not saying that lots of cards are bad, mind you. I guess privacy.com does this too, you can give each vendor their own card. I think you can even have more cards for the same vendor, so you can use one card for a subscription and another card for ad hoc purchases.

That is even better than bunq had before where each payment for the same vendor always went to the same account. There are topics where people asked how they could sent their iTunes subscription to another account without also changing the account for separate song purchases.

Anyway, there should be a nice way to manage them and I think having virtual cards somewhere "below" the account they are connected to would be s great idea. You still might end up with one acount which has lot of cards, but I think you can find the card you want easier than in a long list of cards for all accounts.

Too bad Privacy,com is only for US citizens or permanent residents :sad:

johannes

@JeroenE#49626

@JeroenE#49626 The only drawback with a virtual card connected to an account is that you can't switch the card to another account.

Why? You could implement this as well :)

@JeroenE#49626 You could do this in the past because you could set an account for each vendor that debited your card.

The old method has some problems, as merchants changes names and so..

@JeroenE#49626 Too bad Privacy,com is only for US citizens or permanent residents :sad:

That's very sad, yes. I hope to see bunq implementing a "Privacy.com" - for europe :)

JeroenE

@johannes#49629 Because I'm a fickle person who sometimes like to move things around. So let's say now i have 1 account for all types of Insurance. But perhaps next month I'd rather have separate accounts for Home, Car, Health and Miscellaneous. How can I set the car insurance to new account X and the home insurance to new account Y when they are now both on the same card connected to the old account?

I don't know how often merchants change names, but if they do I don't think I would find it very difficult that I would need to approve them again. I might even like it so I can take a look to see if they didn't also change the conditions and so on ;)