When we launched last year, we got dozens of requests from customers asking about Cards. “Do you have virtual cards?” “Do you issue dollar cards?” “When will Cards be ready?” “Do you produce physical cards?” “We need to be able to issue NGN cards to our customers.”
All we want is to help businesses like yours succeed, and the decisions we make are motivated by our customers’ needs. It became clear to us that businesses want access to creating and issuing cards to their customers. So, we spent the past few weeks building and testing an early version of what would be the first version of our Cards product, and we are proud to share it with you.
Today, we’re excited to announce that businesses can now issue Naira and Dollar virtual cards to their customers, powered by Verve and Mastercard respectively.
It is currently available -
- On the Bloc API for developers who are integrating the Bloc API
- On the Bloc Dashboard for business owners, with no need to write a line of code.
For Developers: How Does Bloc's Virtual Card Work?
Creating and assigning a card is incredibly easy.
All you have to do is search for the customer (or pass the customer ID via API), and the card is immediately created and tied to the customer. But that’s not all, you can do much more with Cards on Bloc.
Here are a few of them:
- Link to virtual account: By default, the business is responsible for all funding activity done on a virtual card. However, businesses can decide to link the card to a virtual account owned by the cardholder making sure that all funding is debited from the virtual account and not the business’ main balance.
- Admin control: We built features that gives the business more controls over how their virtual cards are used. Say a customer wants to fund their card but cannot seem to do so on their own, the business can process this on behalf of the customer either via API or on the Dashboard. Businesses can also freeze/unfreeze a card if they suspect any fraudulent activity.
- Track transaction activity: Businesses can see an overview of how their issued cards are performing. They can view all the transaction records, number of successful transactions and failed transactions, etc.
Bloc Cards for Businesses
Cards is available on the Bloc Dashboard. This means you can issue cards without the need to write a single line of code.
Verified non-tech businesses can currently enjoy our Cards product by adding themselves as a customer and creating a card for themselves.
To use Bloc as a business, all you have to do is:
- Sign up in a few minutes on the Bloc Dashboard
- Complete your business verification by uploading your business registration documents
- Navigate to the Cards tab and select a customer to issue a card to.
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Here are some ways Bloc Cards are beneficial for your business:
- Track Business / Employee expenses: You can issue virtual cards to your employees for business expenses, such as office supplies, online ads, or travel expenses.
Each employee can be given a unique virtual card for their expenses, this helps to simplify your expense management and reduces the risk of fraud or misuse. For example, if you own a small business and have several employees who regularly incur expenses, virtual cards can help you keep track of those expenses and limit the amount available for each employee. - International Transactions: If your business engages in frequent international transactions, with the need to pay in dollar, Bloc Virtual Dollar Cards is your reliable partner for those payments. By funding your card, you can make sure to separate personal expenses from business expenses and stay on top of your finances.
- Employee Benefits: It's the little things like a free monthly Netflix or Spotify subscriptions for your employees' personal relaxation that sets the tone for a great company.
You can start this by issuing a Bloc Card funded monthly with the amount needed for subscriptions for each employee and watch as you slowly build a more relaxed work environment. - Loyalty Cards: If you want to keep your customers coming back, a loyalty program like cards is the best way to keep customers shopping your brand.
Loyalty cards allow your business to present exclusive offers, motivating customers to make more purchases. By offering a reward for repeat business, you are more likely to see customers continue spending on your products or services. If you want to issue reliable loyalty cards to your customers, Bloc Cards is your best bet.
Commonly Asked Questions
I’m concerned about security. What have you done regarding this?
Our infrastructure is PCI-DSS certified, which is short for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a globally renowned information security standard used to handle card information from major card issuers.
What licences do I need to have to integrate with Bloc?
You do not need any licences. Bloc has taken care of all licensing and regulatory requirements. All you have to do is plug and play.
Who are your card issuers?
Our NGN cards are powered by Verve, while our USD cards are powered by Mastercard.
What's Next?
In the future, we will explore the possibilities of giving businesses more control over how they can use Cards for their own needs like spend management, and how they can give their customers more flexible access to use the cards and virtual accounts that have been issued to them.
We're excited to see what you do with Cards, if you’d like to be a part of the early access pool for Cards, please sign up here.
Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback — we’d love to hear from you.
Cards is here!