To be honest, this all sounds like it should be a primary bank feature. I should be able to cap a recurring payment at $X for a specific vendor otherwise have it go through automatically.

My personal bank sort of gives me that with their fraud protection. If a one off huge charge appears from a company that regularly bills me (but at much smaller amounts), their fraud system sends a text asking if I want to authorise or block the charge.

The second bank account is really more for protecting you against black swan events. If all your accounts are under the same bank and have the same owner, there's nothing stopping the bank taking funds from one of your accounts to make up for shortfalls in another.

CaptialOne does this pretty well. So far it is the only bank I have come across would alert me they are blocking the transaction for a few days so I have a chance to review and if I don't they will release the block. Every 6 months or so they have someone called me up to verify recent transactions.

Hell, their mobile app alerts me the moment a recurring charge posts for a different amount than normal, if I put my NYT delivery on hold for travel or something I can guarantee the next two months I'll get an alert to review the transaction (though they don't outright block it)

I know that bank of america offers this feature on all its personal credit cards. You can create a temporary card number (and related info) as well as how much can be charged in a given month and how many months the card number should be active for.

The only reason I don't use them for everything is because I get better cashback/points with other cards.

This works well in India, with 2-factor auth — Indian companies can't charge my debit or credit card just because they have the card number, expiry and CVV. I have to approve each transaction with my bank.

I'm wary of giving my card information to companies outside India because I don't have this protection.

>Indian companies can't charge my debit or credit card just because they have the card number, expiry and CVV. I have to approve each transaction with my bank.

True for Indian companies but what if you get charged via Forex abroad? For me - Google or Steam - don't required 2FA. All I have to do is to enter my number, confirm CVV then zap. It gets debited. I do get a call from my bank (HDFC) asking if this transaction has been initiated by me, if I say yes, they let go.

Yes, foreign transactions are exempt, which is why I said I was wary giving my card to companies outside India.

My bad.

Isn't that effectively the same?

My bank (in Sweden) lets me generate virtual debit card numbers with a specified cost cap and expiration date. It's some ancient-looking Flash widget though so I suspect it's a legacy feature...

I'm in Sweden – which bank is this?

Swedbank. The feature is called "e-kort" and is found in the internet banking under "Kortöversikt".

The Flash UI looks like this http://mayoyo.tokyo/jJ7.png

They used to have a mobile app but it was discontinued since it didn't support 2FA.

I'm not in Sweden, but my Swedish bank SEB offers this. It's part of the "order a card" UI, not flash as the parent is talking about though.

That South African hackable (in the good sense of the word) bank that's been making the rounds on HN might be able to do this. (I forget the name of the bank.)

That's the one, thanks!

I applied for a new credit card with a low credit limit and I am using this card for all my SAAS payments

Well, that's pretty much what a virtual card is – you transfer funds to it like you would with any other bank account, and it's not in your bank. It'll be a debit card with no overdraft, so any charges over what is in the account will be denied. This won't fly with places that require a credit card, like car rental agencies for instance, but that's a non issue in this case obviously.

Definitely use a different bank. A friend had a separate checking account for their PayPal purchases. And when PayPal clawed back some money (as they are wont to do), the bank manager helpfully transferred money into the account to avoid an overdraft charge.