A virtual IBAN is an account number in standard IBAN format that routes incoming payments to a real master account held by the company, without being a separate bank account with its own balance.
A virtual IBAN looks and behaves like any IBAN for the payer. The bank or payment institution that issues it maps each virtual number to the master account, and the credited virtual IBAN tells the company who paid, whatever the payer wrote in the transfer reference.
Virtual IBANs serve three main uses in finance operations:
- One virtual IBAN per customer: each incoming transfer identifies its payer, which automates cash application
- One virtual IBAN per entity or country: subsidiaries collect locally while cash lands in a central account, a lighter alternative to cash pooling
- One virtual IBAN per purpose: marketplaces and platforms segregate funds by seller, project or client
Regulators have tightened the framework. The European Banking Authority's report on virtual IBANs, published in May 2024, flagged three risks: IBAN discrimination when a payer refuses an IBAN with a foreign country code, gaps in anti-money-laundering traceability, and divergent national interpretations. The Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, applicable from 10 July 2027, requires the entity issuing virtual IBANs to be able to identify the persons using them (article 22(3)).
A virtual IBAN identifies the payer. It does not tell which invoice was paid, whether the amount is complete, or why a customer deducted part of it. Phacet handles that second step: AI Match allocates the payment to its invoices, and the agent that can reconcile bank transactions and detect unmatched flows raises partial payments and unexpected amounts for review. At group level, the same data supports cash position consolidation.
