How-To Guides
Practical guides to EMIs, reward redemptions, lounge access, fee waivers and getting more from your cards.
1987 posts · Page 93 of 166
How-To GuidesPer-diem vs actuals: how companies settle employee travel spends
Every company that sends employees on the road has to answer the same question: when someone travels for work, how do we settle what they spent? In India, the answer almost always comes down to two systems — per-diem or
How-To GuidesVirtual cards for vendor payments: controls that stop misuse
The classic way companies pay vendors by card is also the leakiest: one physical corporate card number, shared across the team, reusable forever, visible to everyone who ever handled it. If that number escapes — and numb
How-To GuidesExpense management software and corporate cards: the reconciliation flow
The stack of paper bills used to be the defining office ritual of every Indian finance team. Someone would return from a trip, dump a folder of crumpled receipts on the accounts desk, and the reconciliation would take we
How-To GuidesCorporate credit cards in India: how they actually work
Walk into any Indian office and you will find two kinds of credit cards in employees' wallets: the personal one they chose for themselves, and the corporate one the company handed them. They look almost identical — same
How-To GuidesBefore you save your card: a quick merchant hygiene checklist
That "save this card for faster checkout" tick box is a small decision with a long tail: a standing credential, a token in someone's vault, one more relationship on your audit list. Most of the time it's perfectly fine.
How-To GuidesOne card, many tokens: why your card looks different in every app
Save the same credit card on five different apps, and your bank sees one card while each app sees something different. The last four digits match, the brand matches — but the underlying credential each merchant holds is
How-To GuidesReplacing your card: which saved payments break and the order to fix them
A replacement card is on its way — whether because the old one expired, was lost, or was compromised. Now comes the less obvious job: figuring out which of your saved payments will keep working, which will break, and in
How-To GuidesHow tokenisation limits card-on-file fraud: the blast-radius argument
Before tokenisation, every merchant that stored your card held the same thing: your actual card number, expiry, and often enough else to transact. One breached database meant your card could be used anywhere in the world
How-To GuidesNetwork tokens vs merchant tokens: the two layers of card-on-file security
"Tokenisation" is often described as a single thing — your card number gets replaced by a token. In reality there are two distinct layers doing different jobs: network tokens, issued and managed by the card networks, and
How-To GuidesToken requestors: the companies sitting between you and your card number
When you save a card on a shopping app, your card number doesn't go to the app — it goes through a choreographed handoff involving a "token requestor", a "token service provider", and your bank. These are the companies s
How-To GuidesWhy a subscription survives a card replacement: token lifecycles explained
Your card is reissued — new expiry, new CVV, maybe a new number — and yet your OTT subscription renews without a hitch while your electricity autopay fails. Why does one saved payment survive a replacement and another br
How-To GuidesGuest checkout vs saved card: the real trade-offs
Nearly every checkout page in India offers the same fork in the road: tick "save this card for faster checkout" or don't. Guest checkout — paying without creating an account or storing anything — is the other path. Both