MasterCard Launches Online V-Card for X-Border Shopping

KB Kookmin Card, in partnership with MasterCard, will introduce a virtual credit card that will allow overseas customers easy access to retail sites such as Amazon.com. The “SecurePay” protects users from personal information theft.

By issuing a virtual credit card number, users essentially get a one use number that would be useless to thieves. The service will be provided free of charge to all KB MasterCard users, including the users of the KB MasterCard debit card.

As most overseas online retailers store their customers’ credit card payment information in their servers, it is easy for (cyberthieves) to find out and cause serious financial damages to credit card users. We will try to reduce the incidence of card number theft significantly by introducing the virtual credit card number scheme,” said Jang Yong-il, head of KB Kookmin Card’s international business.

In an attempt to make the service as elastic as possible, users can also generate multiple virtual card numbers for a single card with different limits depending on purpose.  Cards can be discarded at any time, regardless of preset expiration, at the cardholders request.