What are MySudo virtual cards and how do they work?

A virtual card is a digital payment card linked to your debit or credit card that does not reveal any of your personal details when you spend.

Virtual cards are a popular way to shop privately and securely because you get your items but merchants and bad actors don't get your data.

Virtual cards are sometimes called masked cards.

                                            

How does a virtual card work?

• A virtual card is digital, so it sits on your device, not in your physical wallet.

• A virtual card is linked to your own debit or credit card, but it actually has its own card number, CVV and expiry date. It’s like a proxy for the account from your bank.

• You can use your virtual card online or over the phone or anywhere you need to give someone your credit card number.

• Since the virtual card has its own details, your details are safe: the merchant doesn’t get your data and neither do data brokers or criminals. Even your transaction details (what you bought and where) are kept private from your bank.

• The virtual card doesn’t have its own balance. Charges for purchases on your virtual card are forwarded directly to your linked account (i.e. debit or credit card).

• You can use a virtual card for a one-off payment or for all your purchases.

• You can close a virtual card at any time to stop unwanted charges.

What are the benefits of using MySudo virtual cards?

Virtual cards are considered the most private and secure way to spend because they shield your personal and financial information from being shared, sold or stolen.

MySudo offers virtual cards* to users as one of many privacy and cyber safety features. Here’s what makes them a great choice:

• Combined with the private Sudo email and phone number, a MySudo virtual card lets you completely compartmentalize (silo) your spending across purposes. This organizes your spending and disaggregates your digital exhaust to protect you against data breaches, data brokers and criminal activity. It also means you match the virtual card use to your Sudo use, keeping some virtual cards for a long time (e.g. to book air travel) and others for a very short time (e.g. to buy an item from a website you suspect might be sketchy).

• MySudo virtual cards give you a choice of funding source for your virtual cards – link them to either a debit or credit card.

• The total transaction limit of $350 (before transaction fees) per day for all virtual cards combined on your account is an extra safeguard on your money.

• Detailed transaction history is visible to you in the MySudo app, but not on your bank statement, where transactions appear only as ‘MySudo transaction’, to protect your privacy and render the information less valuable to organizations that sell your personal data.

• You can cancel a MySudo virtual card at any time without affecting the rest of your Sudo’s functionality, and without the time-consuming process you’d normally go through to replace a personal card that’s been compromised. You have a limit of one active virtual card per Sudo, so if you cancel one of your Sudo virtual cards, you can create another one.

*MySudo virtual cards are currently only available for US-based users.