CapOne Uses Chatbots To Roll Out Virtual Account Numbers

Aiming to make online shopping safer, Capital One late last week rolled out the ability to shop with virtual card numbers via chatbot.

According to a report in TechCrunch, customers won’t be required to create account numbers, as that task will be left to Capital One’s smart assistant, dubbed Eno. By tapping the chatbot to create the virtual card numbers to be used for online shopping, Capital One intends to give customers faster access to the numbers. Eno can already provide customers with information about their accounts via text.

While Capital One has been testing virtual credit card numbers since November of 2017, according to TechCrunch, until now there hasn’t been an official announcement. Capital One’s virtual card numbers are seen as a way to protect against hacks, enabling customers to pay without providing their credit card account information.

With the service, users go to the website to create virtual card numbers – which can be given nicknames – and manage them via an online dashboard. Users are able to lock or unlock the numbers as needed. To get rid of a subscription, Capital One customers can simply lock that virtual account number. Eno will also auto-fill information during checkout, enabling faster processing. The virtual numbers are integrated into the customer’s Capital One account, so they can still get rewards points.

The virtual card numbers work with personal credit cards and via Google Chrome and Firefox. Capital One plans to expand it to more platforms in the future, as well as add more features, such as transaction limits, time-specific cards for specific merchants and one-time-use virtual numbers.