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Starling Bank has just released a new virtual card. It’s completely virtual and sits within your current account. What does that mean and what difference does it make? Well I think it’s pretty exciting and let me explain why.
What Is A Starling Virtual Card?
The virtual card is linked to a space in your starling account. Spaces are places that you can make within your current account to separate and organise your money.
A common use of spaces is to have one that you call ‘Holiday’, put a pretty picture of a palm tree on it, set a goal and every month add some money into it. Like a savings account.
The virtual card will be linked to one of the spaces that you make. It can only spend money from that space, making budgeting and managing that money pretty simple.
How Does A Starling Virtual Card Work?
The virtual card will have its own card number, CVV and expiry date. That means you can use it just like any other card online. Filling in the payment screen with the details from this card.
You don’t actually receive a physical card. It’s just on your app and that’s where you can find all the card details, just as you can your debit card.
Additionaly you can add it to a mobile wallet, such as Apple pay. That means you can spend with your starling virtual card in shops like normal too.
Why Use A Virtual Card?
On top of the money management tricks I will talk about in a moment there are other reasons to use a virtual card.
They offer you more security. If you’re nervous about spending money online, or perhaps a certain website. Using a virtual card means you aren’t using your actual bank balance or details.
You can’t use a virtual card for money transfers either, such as to another account or paypal.
They also have the same features as your current account card, so you can lock them in the app and receive notifications as you spend.
Managing Your Money
One simple way you can benefit from this, I’ll explain a better way in just a moment, is to make a space for food.
Create a virtual card linked to your food space. Top up your space with the amount you believe you spend on food, or more, or as is needed.
Now anytime you spend any money on food, use the virtual card.
This will make tracking your food spending so much easier, it’s almost like you have a separate bank account just for food. You can see how much you had to put in, how much and how often you spent.
A more interesting way could be to make a savings space called Subscriptions.
Then have any subscription services you have linked to it. Such as netflix, spotify, xbox gamepass, magazines, coffee, apps.. I think you get the idea.
This will give you a space that lists the date and costs of all the subscriptions you have running. It may be eye opening, it may lead to you switching some off and saving some money.
What it does is it gives you a list of things that fall into the want rather than need category of spending. If for any reason you need to cut back to the essentials, then here is a list of things and exactly how much you could save. Pretty convenient.
Using A Starling Virtual Card To Stop Impulse Purchases
If you find yourself struggling with impulse purchases then maybe a virtual card could help. You could be so brazen as to name a space impulse purchases.
Give yourself an allowance by setting the space to top up by a certain amount each week or each month. You can only spend what is in that space. This means you can only spend what you have allowed yourself to spend.
No more surprises when you look at your bank balance, because you won’t be spending from it. Only your impulse purchases space.
How To Get A Starling Virtual Card
When creating a space within the starling app you will see the option to make a virtual card. Or you can go into an existing space and go into the ‘manage space’ tab, there you will see ‘create a virtual card’ at the bottom.
You can have up to 5 cards at any one time and you can cancel or delete a card at any time.
There are some colours and shapes associated with each card, to help you quickly identify them.
Want To Know More About Starling Bank?
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