Shopping online sans creditcards

A virtual card can be generated for the particular transaction you wish to enter
MUMBAI: The proliferation of credit and debit cards has seen to a surge in online shopping numbers in recent years. Still, many are not comfortable with the idea of revealing sensitive information such as the credit card number and other details on a website for fear of being cheated by fraudsters on the prowl.
For such people, banks have rolled out facilities that allow one to shop online without having to worry about security aspects of the transactions they enter into online.
HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, among others, have a facility wherein an account holder can generate a card using the netbanking facility. HDFC Bank calls it the Netsafe card, while Kotak Mahindra Bank calls it netc@rd. Both, however, help one to pay for an online transaction without providing the credit card, debit card or account number.And how? Because he would be using a virtual card for the online transactions.
This is how it works. Say you want to purchase a book online. You would need to log into your netbanking account and generate a virtual card, which can be seen on the webpage.
If the book you wish to buy online costs Rs 250, you can generate a one-time-use virtual card for Rs 250 and use this card number instead of the credit card number. The least this does is make sure that an amount of not more than Rs 250 is debited from your account.
Even if you lose the card number after that transaction, it would be useless because you have taken it for a single transaction in the first place.
In case there is a balance left, inspite of you having purchased your item online, the amount would be credited back to your bank account.
One can buy books, air tickets and even railway tickets via the website www.irctc.co.in using these cards. Electricity and mobile bills, too, can be paid.
There is, however, a limit of five Netsafe cards amounting to a maximum of Rs 25,000, which one can generate in a day.Similarly, one can use an Itz Cash card. Only, this card has to be of round figures between Rs 250 and Rs 10,000. If you wish to shop online for a higher amount, another card would have to be purchased. A limitation is that Itz Cash can be used only with companies that Itz Cash has a tie-up with. On the positive side, however, while the cards provided by the banks have to be generated online, Itz Cash card can be ordered either online or through phone.