Ghost cards aren’t anything really all that new. The technology and general concept of the ghost card have actually been around for decades. In fact, the idea came from a consumer product which was aimed at stopping external theft. The idea that the physical credit card you use is more of a tool than a payment gateway.

The technology allowed consumers to store multiple card numbers on one physical card and stopped physical fraud from occurring on those cards. The idea unfortunately never took with mobile manufacturers such as Apple and Google creating their own payment platforms using a mobile phone as your physical payment gateway.

The same technology, though, that was used for those initial consumer products is now making a comeback in a corporate form and this has largely been due to the rollback of cash post-COVID19. The ghost card technology though is something which organisations are using just as much for accounting efficacy as organisational efficiency.

To explain a ghost card simply, when accounting departments use the technology a credit card number is assigned either to a specific vendor or to a specific department. That number is then only able to be used or approved for use by that specific vendor or members in that department. This gives an organisation’s accounting department oversight over the spend and stops large-scale fraud internally and externally.

Another unseen benefit of the use of a ghost card though is the wind-down of invoicing for specific vendors which an organisation may do a high amount of business with (because transactions are completed like any other credit card transaction is and instantaneously).  As well as the removal of reimbursement processes for large organisations who might require individuals to complete personal transactions for company equipment and then await reimbursement.

Ghost cards are available through a range of providers and in my view anyway are fast becoming the future of corporate transactions. It’s just about cleaning up an area of the business, accounting, which in the past has been a messy area (which allows the opportune employees and suppliers to take advantage of the confusion).