Our Virtual Accounts offering can be utilised in various ways to assist your business with reconciliation or enhancing your payment account solutions. In essence, Virtual Accounts are simply externally addressable representations of a payment account and do not hold any funds, these are held at Master Account level. Virtual accounts can also be known as Virtual IBANs or vIBANs.

Their key applications include Reconciliation enhancement or facilitating Payments and Collections On Behalf Of (POBO/COBO) your customers.

These Virtual Accounts can provide an efficient way to streamline your treasury operations, for example by assigning a unique Virtual Account number to specific customers, departments or entities without the need for multiple payment accounts. Or, you can make use of our POBO & COBO solution, which enables offering Virtual Accounts in your customers' name with payments sent and received in their name. To learn more about how you can leverage our Virtual Account offering, contact your Relationship Manager.

Virtual Account features

Each Virtual Account links to one or more physical bank accounts where the funds are settled. These accounts are labeled as "Master Accounts" in our system.

Single or multi-currency virtual accounts

Virtual accounts can be either single or multi-currency, based on their linkage to one or multiple Master Accounts. A Master Account is always single currency.

Single currency

By linking a Virtual Account to a single Master Account, such as a EUR Master Account, it operates as a single EUR Virtual Account. All funds, whether incoming or outgoing, will be converted to EUR and settled in this Master Account.

Multiple currencies

Linking a Virtual Account to multiple Master Accounts (e.g., EUR, GBP, and USD) enables it to handle multiple currencies. Funds will be appropriately debited or credited from their associated Master Accounts.

Handling Payments in Unlinked Currencies

You must appoint one of the Master Accounts as a "default" Master Account to handle payments in currencies not associated with any linked Master Accounts. Payments in such currencies will convert to the currency of this default Master Account.

For instance, with a Virtual Account linked to EUR, GBP, and USD Master Accounts, and GBP as the default account, payments in another currency like SEK will convert to GBP and be settled in the GBP Master Account.

Note that we support Master Accounts and hence Virtual Accounts, in 24 different currencies.

Types of Virtual Accounts

We offer three types of Virtual Accounts:

• Reconciliation: Virtual Accounts can be used in your name for reconciliation purposes. Payments can be sent or received and will quote you as the payer/beneficiary.
• POBO (Payments On Behalf Of): Virtual Accounts can be used in your customer's name to send and receive payments.
• COBO (Collection On Behalf Of): Virtual Accounts can be used in your customer's name to receive payments. Any outgoing payments will go in your name vs the customer name.

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POBO vs. COBO

Virtual Accounts of the type POBO can be used both for sending and receiving payments, i.e. it also includes the COBO capabilities. COBO can only be used to receive payments

Virtual Account numbers

Virtual Account IBANs (VIBANs) are available in various local formats for their local IBAN/BBAN, including Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, and United Kingdom. Other local formats are available and subject to eligibility criteria.

How can the different VIBANs be used?

• DK BIC+ IBAN= Cross border, DKK Kronos2, EUR T2, SEPA collection
• DK NCC CODE+ Account number= DKK intradag collection
• DE BIC +DE IBAN = EUR T2, SEPA Collections
• GB BIC +GB IBAN= GBP cross border and SEPA Collection
• GB SORT CODE + Account number= GBP local chaps, FPS, BACS Collection
• LU BIC+ LU IBAN= Cross border, EUR T2, SEPA Collection

Payments with Virtual Accounts

A snippet of how a payment initiation looks like using a Virtual Account IBAN, also known as a VIBAN.

{
  "requestedExecutionDate": "2023-03-09T00:00:00+00:00",
  "debtorAccount": {
    "account": "DK1111111111111111"
  },
  "debtorViban": {
    "account": "DK9389000000012345"
  },
  "amount": {
    "amount": 50
  },
  "debtorReference": "Message to recipient",
  "debtorNarrativeToSelf": "Note to self",
  "currencyOfTransfer": "EUR"
}

Virtual Accounts and characters

The allowed characters are:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
/ - ? : ( ) . ' +
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