1. BVNK Help Centre
  2. Virtual Accounts
  3. Customer Virtual accounts

How to Set Up Customer Virtual Accounts

Customer Virtual Accounts allow you to assign unique virtual IBANs to your business customers facilitating funds to be sent and received in their name. This guide provides a detailed step-by-step process to help you set up and utilise Customer Virtual Accounts effectively via the Merchant Portal journey. Separately for the API route of enabling the feature, it is possible to follow the API documentation.

By virtual accounts, we mean individual vIBANs in the name of your customers, attached to a payment account issued by us to you, which allows you to send and receive payments on behalf of your customers in their name. 

This product is available to businesses based in the UK and in countries supported by BVNK outside the EEA region. GBP account availability is limited to businesses incorporated in the UK, Isle of Man, Jersey, Gibraltar, or Guernsey.

How to Enable the Product:

  1. The FI representative should contact their account manager to initiate the activation process.
  2. After the completion of compliance procedures, the product will be enabled in the merchant portal and accessible via API.

Step 1: Create a “Customer”

This step allows for the creation of a new customer within the BVNK platform to whom a Virtual Account can be assigned to. This step is pivotal, as without adding a customer through the My Customer section, you will not be able to follow the further steps to manage your customers on the BVNK platform.

For example, if your business is a financial institution which services businesses, you would first be required to add the customer list under your My Customer section of the BVNK platform. This will facilitate your business to orchestrate payments on behalf of your customers which are other businesses.

How to Do It:

  1. Access the My Customers section:
    • Log in to your BVNK account via the Merchant Portal.
    • Navigate to the "My Customers" tab.
  2. Add a new Customer:
    • Click on the "Add new customer" button.
    • Fill out the customer information form to add a business with the following details:
      • Business name
      • Industry
      • Business description
      • Business registration number
      • Tax residency country
      • Estimated monthly volume
      • Registered address (including city, post code / ZIP address, and country)
      • Representative (first and last name, date of birth, and nationality)
  3. Review and submit:
    • Double-check all entered information for accuracy.
    • Click "Confirm" to register the customer or “Back” to make changes.
  4. Confirmation:
    • Once a customer is added, they will automatically move to “Under review”
    • After a period of time, the review of the added customer of your business will either be successfully accepted or rejected.
    • If your customer is accepted the “Under review” label will be removed and activity under the customer will be enabled.
    • If your customer is not accepted, the “Under review” label will be replaced by a “Not supported” label and no activity can be performed under this specific customer.

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Create a Wallet and assign Account Details

This function facilitates the creation of a dedicated wallet for the customer and generates unique account details to facilitate transactions. By doing so, the virtual account can be used by you as a tool for managing funds and streamlining payment flows between your business, your customers, and their supplies and partners.

There are various scenarios where unique account details for your customers can be utilised, including:

Facilitating a payment from your business to your customer.

Facilitating a payment from your customer to your business.

Facilitating a payment between your customers.

Facilitating a payment from and to your customers from bank accounts outside of the BVNK ecosystem.

How to do it:

  1. Navigate to the specific Customer on the My Customers tab
    • From your Merchant Portal interface, go to the “My Customers” tab.
    • Click on the specific customer which has successfully passed screening (i.e. not currently “Under review” or “Not supported”)
  2. Create a new wallet:
    • Click on "Add Wallet".
    • Select the currency for the wallet (EUR or GBP).
    • Note that a EUR wallet will create details for SEPA payments, and a GBP wallet will create details for FPS payments.
    • EUR account details are an IBAN and BIC.
    • GBP account details are an Account Number and Sort Code.
    • Enter the wallet name.
    • Ensure all details are correct.
    • Click "Continue" to create the wallet.
  3. Assign Account Details:
    • Option to choose Virtual Account only. 
    • The system will assign a unique virtual IBAN linked to this wallet.
  4. The wallet to is linked to the customer:
    • Once the wallet is created it will automatically sit in the wallet section of the specific customer which is linked to the customer of BVNK. This demonstrates the B2B2B flow.

 

 

 

Step 3: Create a Transfer

This feature is used for liquidity movements and to transfer funds within the Customer Virtual Account flow of the BVNK ecosystem. It can also be understood as an internal transfer.

The functionality is used in a few scenarios:

  1. Transferring funds from your wallet to your customer’s wallet to execute payments on their behalf.
  2. To move funds from a customer’s wallet to your own wallet.
  3. To move funds between customer A and customer B who both use your platform.
  4. Transferring funds between two of your wallets which use the same processing file.

In all scenarios, BVNK serves as the payments infrastructure provider for your business. It supports your platform's operations and enables you to facilitate key actions for your customers, such as moving funds to and from your business and transferring funds between customers on your platform.

How to Do It:

  1. Click on the “My Customers” section.
  2. Choose a specific customer which is enabled to transact.
  3. Click on the specific customer.
  4. Ensure that there is a wallet already created, if not then follow the steps to create a wallet.
  5. On either a EUR or GBP wallet click on the kebab menu (the three dots).
  6. Click on the “Move” button.
  7. You will be presented to move funds “to another wallet” or “to a customer wallet”
    • If you would like to transfer funds from your customer to your business, then select “to another wallet”.
    • If you would like to transfer funds from your customer to another one of your customers, then select “to a customer wallet”.
      1. Note that when you select this option you will have to select specifically which customer and their particular wallet which you would like to move funds to.
  8. After selecting the wallet to move the funds to, the amount to transfer, and a payment reference (mandatory field), you can click continue, and then confirm the transaction before receiving a popup message to show that the funds have been transferred.
  9. For accounting and reconciliation purposes, it is possible to monitor the transaction history and to export the data. This process is discussed in more detail later in this article.

 

Step 4: Create a Payout

This process enables the ability for Customer Virtual Account wallets to complete outbound payments to other external bank accounts using their Virtual Account.

This step is useful for you to create a payout on behalf of your customer to their own bank account (first party payment) or a payment to a bank account not owned by your customer’s business (third party payment).

When creating a Fiat Payout the following information is necessary; bank account number, bank code for GBP payments, and IBAN and BIC for EUR payments.

Note that if an invalid Bank Account or Bank Code are provided the payment will be rejected with an error message returned.

How to do it:

  1. Click on the “My Customers” section.
  2. Choose a specific customer which is enabled to transact.
  3. Click on the specific customer.
  4. Ensure that there is a wallet already created, if not then follow the steps to create a wallet.
  5. On either a EUR or GBP wallet click on the kebab menu (the three dots).
  6. Click on the “Pay” button.
  7. An option will appear to select a beneficiary which is already enabled.
  8. If the desired bank account to make the outbound payment is not already added as a beneficiary, then it is possible to follow the flow to add a new beneficiary before creating the payout.
  9. Once you have chosen the desired bank account to pay and inserted a reference you can click “Pay Recipient”.
  10. You will be prompted to input the amount to pay to the beneficiary. After selecting the amount and clicking “Continue”, you will be asked to enter the authentication code before your payment is successfully submitted.

Other Capabilities

Ability to Export Reports

The ability to access transactional data on transfers between your business to and from your customers, transfers between your customers, payments to your business and your customers from external bank accounts, and payments on behalf of your customers to suppliers and partners is a crucial component of transaction processing.

For example, your business is a financial institution that has many business customers to which they transact on almost everyday each month. For improved reconciliation and forward planning, you can export a file to review a customer's transaction history from a specific wallet within a given period.

How to do it:

  1. Click on the “My Customers” section.
  2. Choose a specific customer which is enabled to transact.
  3. Click on the specific customer.
  4. Choose a specific wallet of the customer.
  5. Click on the kebab menu (the three dots) and select “Export”.
  6. From the “Export wallet transaction” screen that appears it is possible to export data from the given wallet over the last 30 days, previous calendar month, previous 3 calendar months, or custom date range.
  7. You can then select the export format of the data, either “Transaction CSV” or “PDF Statement”.
  8. Once you have decided the timeframe and format of the data, by clicking the button “Send to email” you will receive the file to the email account linked to your BVNK Merchant Portal account.

 

Example text of the email received after exporting wallet transaction data:

How to Close or Edit a Wallet

As a customer of BVNK there might be scenarios where you would like to close the wallets in your My Customer flow, be that your customers’ wallets or your own wallet which is linked to the Customer Virtual Accounts product.

Some examples of where this might exist is when a customer of your business stops being a customer of your business, this might be because they have stopped transacting with you or because their own business has stopped operating. Similarly, your customer might rename or change some of their business, therefore it would be required that you update their details for your records and reconciliation purposes.

Moreover, you might decide to no longer use your own wallet which is under the Customer Virtual Accounts flow, in which case closing your wallet will also close those underlying customer wallets related to your business.

To successfully close any wallet related to the Customer Virtual Accounts product, simply reach out to the Support Team and they can assist you.

 

Need More Help?

If you have any questions or require further assistance, please contact our support team by submitting a request via the link provided: https://help.bvnk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

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