Google is bringing secure virtual credit cards to Chrome

Making payments online is fraught with potential dangers, and there is risk involved with making purchases with your credit card. To help offer a level of protection, many companies -- including the likes of Revolut -- enable their customers to create virtual, disposable credit cards.

Inspired by this, Google is building the same functionality into Chrome. The company announced the upcoming payment security feature at Google I/O, saying that there will be support for autofilling details to help speed up transactions.

See also:

• You can now buy official Microsoft Windows 11 Home and Windows 11 Pro USB drives
• Microsoft releases KB5013943 update to fix screen flicker and app problems in Windows 11
• KB5013943 update for Windows 11 is causing 0xc0000135 errors

Speaking about the upcoming virtual cards feature, Google's Jen Fitzpatrick says: "As people do more shopping online, keeping payment information safe and secure is critically important. We're launching virtual cards on Chrome and Android. When you use autofill to enter your payment details at checkout, virtual cards will add an additional layer of security by replacing your actual card number with a distinct, virtual number".

Explaining more of the benefits, she says:

This eliminates the need to manually enter card details like the CVV at checkout, and they’re easy to manage at pay.google.com -- where you can enable the feature for eligible cards, access your virtual card number, and see recent virtual card transactions. Virtual cards will be rolling out in the US for Visa, American Express, Mastercard and all Capital One cards starting this summer.

There is currently no word on whether the scheme will be opened up to other providers, or when it might make its way to other countries.