Business accounts
Virtual IBANs, in your business’s name
Dedicated account numbers for clean collections and reconciliation, issued by FCA-authorised e-money institutions.
What you get
- Client AGB·· ···· 0417
- Client BGB·· ···· 2280
- Client CGB·· ···· 9034
Named, not pooled
Counterparties pay an account carrying your business’s name, not a reference code into someone else’s account.
Per-flow separation
Issue IBANs per client, product or entity, and let your ledger reconcile itself.
Multi-currency
Collect in your customers’ currencies and convert on your schedule through the group’s FX line.
New to the concept? Read what is a virtual IBAN? then see international payments.
The reconciliation problem,
and why an IBAN solves it
If everyone pays into one account, the only thing separating one customer’s money from another’s is the reference they typed into their own banking app. Some of them get it right. Enough of them do not that most finance teams keep a standing job called “unallocated receipts”.
Every unmatched payment costs twice. Someone has to work out whose it was, which means emails to a customer who believes they have already paid. And until it is matched, your ledger shows an invoice outstanding that is not, so credit control chases a customer who is not late. That is the quiet cost of a pooled account: not the fees, the hours.
A dedicated IBAN removes the guesswork by moving the identification into the account number itself. If each customer, each entity or each product line pays into its own IBAN, the money is already identified by the time it arrives, and the reference field goes back to being a convenience rather than load-bearing infrastructure.
- £1,450.00RENT FLAT 3
- £880.00j smith
- £2,100.00INV 4471
- £1,450.00no reference
Three to chase. Two invoices still showing unpaid.
- £1,450.00Flat 3, Bridge St···· 0417
- £880.00Flat 7, Bridge St···· 2280
- £2,100.00Unit 2, Mill Yard···· 9034
- £1,450.00Flat 11, Bridge St···· 5561
Matched on arrival. Nothing to chase.
Client money accounts, and where IBANs help
If you hold money that belongs to someone else, the problem is not only knowing whose it is. It is being able to show whose it is, to a regulator or an auditor, at any point.
Letting agents, property managers, solicitors and anyone else holding client money have to keep it apart from their own and keep records that stand up. A pooled account with a reference column is a reconciliation exercise pretending to be a control. A named IBAN per client, tenancy or matter makes the separation visible in the account structure itself, so the audit trail is a by-product of how money arrives rather than something rebuilt at month end.
One thing worth being precise about: client money rules and e-money safeguarding are different regimes and neither replaces the other. A virtual IBAN improves how you evidence client money; it does not change what the rules require of you. Client money vs safeguarding →
The audit trail writes itself as money arrives.
Separate regimes: the IBAN evidences, it does not replace either.
How businesses divide them up
One per customer
The usual choice where you invoice a manageable number of clients repeatedly. Payment arrives already attributed, and aged debt reports stop carrying receipts nobody has matched yet.
One per entity or brand
Groups running several companies or trading names keep the flows apart at the account level rather than untangling them at month-end, which is also what an auditor would rather see.
One per currency or market
Give counterparties an account to pay that looks local to them. Collections in your customers’ currencies can then be converted on your own schedule.
Letting agents use the per-tenancy version of this to make rent reconcile itself: see payments for letting agents.
Where the money actually sits
A virtual IBAN is a real, routable account number issued under a licensed institution’s master account. Funds are held and safeguarded by that e-money institution, not lent out and not held by VIP360, and the institution issuing your IBAN is named before you commit to anything.
Safeguarding is not the same protection as FSCS deposit cover, and it is worth understanding the difference rather than assuming one is the other. We set both out plainly on safeguarding, explained, and how to check any provider’s licence shows you how to verify an institution yourself on the public register.
Frequently asked questions
A virtual IBAN is a real, routable account number issued under an institution’s master account. Payments sent to it arrive addressed to your business by name, which makes collections and reconciliation dramatically cleaner than sharing one pooled account.
Functionally you send and receive the same way. Structurally, the funds are held and safeguarded by the issuing e-money institution rather than sitting in a bank deposit. See our safeguarding explainer for what that means for protection.
Typical uses: collecting from customers in their local currency, separating flows per client or per entity for clean books, and giving international counterparties a named account they trust paying into.
Yes. It is routable, and a counterparty pays it exactly as they would any other account. What differs is the structure behind it: the IBAN is issued under a licensed institution’s master account rather than being a standalone bank account.
Businesses commonly run one per customer, per entity or per currency, depending on what they need to keep separate. The practical limit is set by the issuing institution and your use case, and a specialist will confirm it before you build a process around it.
Yes. Counterparties pay an account carrying your business’s name rather than a reference code into a pooled account, which is usually what makes finance departments at the other end willing to release payment without querying it.
No. E-money is not a bank deposit, so FSCS deposit protection does not apply. Instead, e-money institutions must safeguard client funds under FCA rules, holding them separately from the institution’s own money so they exist to be returned to you. Our safeguarding page sets out exactly what that does and does not cover.
Check if we can help
Tell us what you need. You’ll deal with one team, with the group’s licensed institutions behind it, and get a straight answer either way.