Similarities:
-Both are debit cards.
-Both use the Mastercard network.
-Both are tied to your Revolut account, and draw money out of your account when transactions occur.
-Both can be used to make online transactions (e.g. Spending money at Amazon, or using it as a payment method in an app, like UberEATS or Deliveroo.).
-Both can be used to transact in your base currency (GBP, EUR, …), and in different currencies (Either drawing out of your existing currency account, if there is a sufficient sum.), or by converting it at the interbanking rate.
Differences:
-You can use your physical card to pay at physical payment terminals. Your virtual card cannot, since it doesn’t exist in the physical realm.
-The physical card can use contactless payments, chip-and-pin and magstripe. Your virtual card does not have the contactless payments feature, a chip for chip-and-pin transactions, and a magstripe for magstripe transactions, as it is not physical.
-The physical card has a PIN, used for withdrawing money from ATMs and when using the chip-and-pin feature when paying at a physical terminal. Your virtual card does not have a PIN (Note that a PIN code is different to SecureCode, which is Mastercard’s equivalent of ‘Verify by VISA’.).
-The physical card has the card security features as set out in the app (Location-based security, magstripe payments disabling, contactless payments disabling, ATM withdrawals disabling, e-commerce transactions disabling.). The virtual card does not (Given how it is virtual, it does not have a magstripe, cannot be used to make contactless payments, cannot be used to withdraw ATMs, and does not have location-based security as it can only be used to transact online, or by entering in the details into a terminal directly.).
In summary: The physical card is physical, and the virtual card is virtual, and therefore cannot be used for transactions made in the physical world (e.g. At a payments terminal in a restaurant.).