Why “virtual”
The details are real: a payer sends money to them exactly as they would to any bank account. What is virtual is the arrangement behind them — you do not open a bank account per customer, Kira does the equivalent and keeps each one’s money attributable to them.Creating it and opening it are two steps
Asking for an account is immediate; the bank issuing its details is not. So a freshly created account exists, and is yours, but carries no details to hand a payer yet — the bank assigns those, and Kira tells you when it has. Nothing can be paid in until that has happened. Wait for the account to report itself open rather than for it to merely exist.It has a mode, and the mode is permanent
An account decides what happens to money that arrives, and the choice is made when it is created:
The mode cannot be changed afterwards. An account opened in fiat mode never converts on its own — if you want the balance converted, that is a movement you ask for, priced like any other. An account opened in crypto mode converts every arrival, and the conversion fee applies each time.
Which mode also decides what a deposit looks like on its way in: a fiat deposit is complete when it arrives, while a crypto one settles through a conversion first. Inbound transaction or deposit follows both.
What it is called elsewhere
The name is the same in the API reference. See The virtual account object.Money sitting in a virtual account costs nothing to keep there, and paying out of it is cheaper than moving new money in — see How you’re charged.