Virtual Account
Generating virtual account numbers from transaction identifiers for payment gateways, e-commerce platforms, and courier services.
What is a virtual account
A virtual account is an automatically generated account number created from a transaction identifier. This identifier can be, for example:
- The sender’s email address
- Order ID from an e-shop
- Transaction reference from the payment gateway
- Customer identifier
A virtual account allows the accounting system to uniquely identify the counterparty to a transaction, even if it is not a standard bank transfer with the counterparty’s actual account number.
How it works
From a text identifier (e.g. buyer@email.com), a unique 16-digit number is generated using a hash function, which is used as the counterparty’s account number in the GPC file. The same identifier always generates the same account number.