Alliance Bank today officially announced the availability of its latest Visa Virtual Credit Card (VCC) offering to the public. While this is not the bank’s first VCC, what made the new card stands out from the bank’s earlier VCC releases is a feature called the Dynamic Card Number.
Said to be the first such implementation in the country, the Group Chief Consumer Banking Officer of Alliance Bank, Gan Pai Li said this feature was developed through a close collaboration between Alliance Bank and Visa. In fact, the Visa Country Manager for Malaysia, Ng Kong Boon has said during today’s press launch that both parties have actually been discussing the feature around two to three years ago.
In response to a query by Lowyat.NET during the media Q&A session, Pai Li further elaborate that a lot of the work was indeed done in-house which made the feature some sort of a proprietary implementation. Nevertheless, the main foundation of the feature still comes from Visa.
The general idea behind the Dynamic Card Number is to provide an additional layer of security to the VCC holders as it enables them to mask the VCC’s actual card number. Through this functionality, they can obtain a random 16-digit card number that not only can be used just for one time but the number will also be made valid for only 30 minutes.
That being said, the Dynamic Card Number feature still can be used for recurring payments that require the card number to be valid for a much longer period. This is made possible through the feature’s Subscription option which allows customers to set the exact spending limit, charge count, and expiry date for the randomized 16-digit card number that they generate.
Cardholders can also choose to customise the visual design of the card to make it easier for them to recognise each card number that they have obtained through the dynamic number generator. Alliance Bank has even pre-loaded several well-known brands into the design option for this purpose.
Aside from the dynamic card number functionality, cardholders can also freeze and unfreeze as well as delete any of the dynamic card numbers that were generated under the VCC directly through the allianceonline mobile app without the need to call Alliance Bank’s customer service. Other than that, the VCC also supports JomPay bill payments and DuitNow QR payments.
Meanwhile, do note that the new Alliance Bank VCC exists fully in the allianceonline mobile app which means it will not come with a physical card by default. While customers do have the option to apply for a separate physical card from the bank while still sharing the same credit limit with the VCC, the application process for the new VCC takes place through the allianceonline mobile app which is something that the bank has done for its physical Visa Platinum card for quite some time.
At the moment, there will be no annual fee attached to it but the VCC still has an annual RM25 fee attached to it which is the Sales Service Tax that has been imposed by the government. To learn more about the new Alliance Bank Visa Virtual Card, just head on to the bank’s official website right here.
