FNB finally launched its virtual card offering to all of its and RMB Private Bank’s clients just last month and the product has already proved incredibly popular.

A virtual card can be created and deleted as you wish and that’s rather important. If, for instance, your virtual card details are compromised, you can easily delete the card without having to go through the headache of ordering a new physical one.

A virtual card is also a bit harder to compromise as one of FNB’s features for this product is a CVV code that changes every hour.

Hypertext participated in a beta-testing phase of the solution and we’ve been using virtual cards to pay for online purchases and streaming solutions.

But after just a week of being available in the wild (the wild here being FNB’s smartphone app) the product has proved incredibly popular among FNB and RMB customers.

“We are truly humbled by the overwhelming response from our customers. On average we saw over 14 000 customers activating Virtual Cards daily. FNB remains committed to providing a range of unique and innovative solutions that are centred around true customer and business value. Virtual Card forms an important part of our journey to make the customer payments experience as convenient, safe and secure as possible,” Payments executive at FNB, Raj Makanjee, said in a media statement.

For those who aren’t shopping online, the virtual cards can also be used for contactless payment solutions such as FNB Pay or Samsung Pay.

Something we just recently learned about virtual cards is that there is no limit to how many you can create. You could in theory create a card for your subscriptions, one for online shopping and one for contactless payment solutions.

What’s more is that chief executive officer of FNB Card, Chris Labuschagne, says the financial institution is working to bring more payment solutions to customers soon.

“We continue to work closely with international platform players and we expect to launch a couple of exciting payment options in the near future,” said Labuschagne.

To create an FNB Virtual card log into your FNB app, tap My Accounts, then tap the account you would like to link the virtual card to. Tap My Cards and then tap Add card or Virtual Card and select Virtual Debit Card. Follow the instructions on-screen and you can start using your card immediately.