Switch launches CardSavr API for virtual cards
Looking to make the leap from plastic cards to virtual cards? Switch and its CardSavr API are here to help, writes David Penn at Finovate.
“Until now, activating merchant-specific virtual cards required cardholders to laboriously create and update every merchant one-by-one,” Switch CEO Chris Hopen says. “Our CardSavr API automates and simplifies the entire user process and secures the card on file at the merchant with one step.”
Launched earlier this year, Switch’s CardSavr API is a first-of-its-kind technology that supports and enables an often-overlooked aspect of commerce: healthy credit card circulation. The CardSavr API helps card issuers get new and re-issued credit cards into circulation with thousands of ecommerce retailers soon after the cards are activated.
The application of the CardSavr API to the virtual card market is the latest evolution in use cases for the technology. From its origins as an innovative credit card updater, the company’s solution provides further assistance to card issuers looking to leverage the efficiency of virtual cards.
Switch says its technology will help speed virtual card adoption and suggests that CardSavr “conquers the elusive issue” of ensuring a seamless card creation and updating process for virtual cards in the same way it has for physical cards. The core technology behind CardSavr can also be used with reward, private label, and person-to-person (P2P) payment schemes, creating what Hopen calls “a healthy virtual payment ecosystem for everyone”.
Speaking for CULedger, a US-based credit union project that is developing applications based on distributed ledger technology (DLT), CEO John Ainsworth praises Switch’s latest offering. “Switch has brought a very innovative technology solution that uniquely allows financial institutions and issuers to capitalise on virtual cards, while increasing security and convenience for our customers.” He adds: “Switch continues to impress me with their disruptive and successful approach to vanquishing major foundational industry challenges that have never been solved.”
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Switch has raised $1.9 million in funding after picking up a $400,000 angel investment last spring.
