What is a virtual account?
A virtual account is a dedicated US bank account that can be generated for each of your receivers. Each virtual account comes with its own unique routing number and account number, enabling your customers to send and receive payments throughout the United States banking system.
These accounts function like regular bank accounts but are managed through the BlindPay platform.
All incoming payments to this virtual account will automatically generate a payin. Transaction fees will be charged on your invoice at the end of each billing cycle.
Eligibility & approval process
Virtual accounts can be issued for:
- US and foreign businesses
- US individuals (sole proprietors only)
After a virtual account is created via the API, it goes through a two-step review process:
- Compliance review — The virtual account is initially placed in a
pending_reviewstatus. BlindPay's compliance team reviews the application before it is submitted to the banking partner. The current SLA is 1 business day. - Bank review — Once approved by compliance, the virtual account is submitted to the bank for final approval. The current SLA is 3 business days from submission.
Approval is not guaranteed at either stage. Both BlindPay's compliance team and the banking partner reserve the right to reject any application at their discretion.
Virtual account statuses
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
pending_review | The virtual account has been created and is awaiting compliance review. |
verifying | Compliance approved — the virtual account has been submitted to the bank. |
approved | The bank has approved the virtual account. It is now active and operational. |
rejected | The virtual account was rejected during compliance or bank review. |
Individuals (sole proprietors only)
For individual applicants, only sole proprietors (individuals operating a business in their own name) are accepted. Examples of eligible sole proprietors include:
- Freelance software developers billing clients for contract work
- Independent consultants (e.g., marketing, management, legal advisors)
- E-commerce sellers operating their own online store
- Content creators earning revenue from platforms, sponsorships, or ad sales
- Tradespeople such as electricians, plumbers, or contractors working independently
Individuals who are not operating as a sole proprietor (e.g., salaried employees receiving personal transfers) are not eligible for a virtual account.
Additional data requirements for businesses
To issue virtual accounts you need to make sure the following data is filled for receivers:
- Business:
account_purpose,business_type,business_description,business_industry,estimated_annual_revenue,source_of_wealth,publicly_traded - Business owners:
ownership_percentage,title
Please make sure all business owners living in the US has their SSN on tax_id field. You can also find business_industry (NAICS code) here.
To update all these fields you can call the following endpoint:
Additional data requirements for individuals
To issue virtual accounts for individual receivers (sole proprietors), the following fields are required in the virtual account creation request:
sole_proprietor_doc_type: type of supporting document (one ofmaster_service_agreement,salary_slip,bank_statement)sole_proprietor_doc_file: a URL pointing to the uploaded document
Payment rails supported
Here are the payment rails that virtual accounts support:
| Type | Country | Estimated time of arrival |
|---|---|---|
| ach | 🇺🇸 United States | ~2 business days |
| domestic wire | 🇺🇸 United States | ~1 business day |
| international wire | 🇺🇸 United States | ~5 business days |
| rtp (soon) | 🇺🇸 United States | ~5 minutes |
These accounts are allowed to send and collect third-party payments.
Generating a virtual account
Before generating a virtual account, you need to:
- Create an account on BlindPay
- Create a development instance
- Create your API key
- Create a receiver
- Add a blockchain wallet
Remember: replace YOUR_SECRET_TOKEN with your API key, in_000000000000 with your instance ID and re_000000000000 with your receiver ID which you created previously.
After creation, the virtual account will have a pending_review status. It will be reviewed by our compliance team before being submitted to the banking partner. You will receive a webhook notification when the status changes.