Literally "turning" or "circle".
Italian noun derived from the verb "girare", "to turn". Besides the literal original meaning you see in
Giro d'Italia, Italy's big bicycle
stage race, it's part of international
banking lingo, used for
checking accounts and the
money transfers effected through them.
This (as well as a number of other expressions like agio) is a remnant of Italy's dominant role in trading during the renaissance age, when the country's merchants and moneylenders developed many of the finer points of the credit and money-shuffling business.
Since sending paper cheques is quite uncommon in Europe nowadays, a giro account is a quite basic necessity (since you cannot even recieve your salary without one) and frequently, if not daily, used by most Europeans.