Accept Bank Transfers with Virtual Accounts

📘 Use Case

A utility or subscription service wants to assign unique virtual account numbers to users so payments via bank transfer can be automatically reconciled.

Why Use Virtual Accounts?

Customer pays to a dedicated account (e.g. Wema/Providus)
Easy auto-matching of payments to customers/orders
Ideal for recurring billing or pay-per-use systems

Prerequisites

Live or Test TransactPay account
API credentials (Secret key and RSA public key)
Active virtual account service on your merchant profile
Customer ID or reference in your DB

Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Setup Backend

Node.js

Install dependencies:

npm install axios node-rsa dotenv

Create .env:

TRANSACTPAY_SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key

Step 2: Prepare Request Payload

Virtual account requests may require:

{
  "customer_name": "John Doe",
  "reference": "INV-123456",
  "currency": "NGN"
}

Step 3: Node.js Code to Generate Virtual Account

const axios = require("axios");
const NodeRSA = require("node-rsa");
const fs = require("fs");
require("dotenv").config();

const pubKey = fs.readFileSync("./transactpay_pub.pem", "utf8");
const rsa = new NodeRSA(pubKey);
rsa.setOptions({ encryptionScheme: "pkcs1" });

const payload = {
  customer_name: "John Doe",
  reference: "INV-123456",
  currency: "NGN",
};

const encrypted = rsa.encrypt(JSON.stringify(payload), "base64");

axios
  .post("https://api.transactpay.io/virtual-account/create", {
    data: encrypted,
  }, {
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TRANSACTPAY_SECRET_KEY}`,
    },
  })
  .then((res) => {
    console.log("Virtual Account:", res.data.data);
  })
  .catch((err) => {
    console.error("Error:", err.response?.data || err.message);
  });

import json, requests, os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives import serialization, hashes
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.asymmetric import padding

load_dotenv()
key = os.getenv("TRANSACTPAY_SECRET_KEY")

with open("transactpay_pub.pem", "rb") as key_file:
    pub_key = serialization.load_pem_public_key(key_file.read())

payload = {
    "customer_name": "John Doe",
    "reference": "INV-123456",
    "currency": "NGN"
}

encrypted = pub_key.encrypt(json.dumps(payload).encode(), padding.PKCS1v15())

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.transactpay.io/virtual-account/create",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {key}"},
    json={"data": encrypted.hex()}
)

print("Response:", res.json())

Sample Response

{
  "status": true,
  "message": "Account created",
  "data": {
    "account_number": "1234567890",
    "bank_name": "Wema Bank",
    "reference": "INV-123456"
  }
}

Step 4: Display Account Details to Customer

On your frontend or dashboard:

“Pay NGN 25,000 to the Wema Bank account below. Your invoice will be confirmed automatically.”

Step 5: Listen for Webhook Updates

TransactPay sends webhook events like virtual_account.payment_received to notify you when a deposit is made.

Sample webhook handling logic:

Match reference or account_number
Mark invoice/order as “Paid”
Send confirmation email or SMS

Security Notes

Never expose your secret key on frontend
Store reference IDs securely
Log unexpected webhooks

Use Case Variants

Create 1 account per customer (for subscriptions)
Create 1 account per order (for pay-per-use)
Expire accounts after X days if needed