According to the legal definition contained in S. 1 para. 35 sentence 1 of the German Act on the Prudential Supervision of Payment Services (ZAG), “acquisition business” (also referred to as acceptance and settlement of payment transactions) describes activities which effect the transfer of funds to the payee and for which the payment service provider concludes a contractual agreement with the payee on the acceptance and processing of payment transactions.
Two requirements must therefore be met for an activity to constitute acquisition business: first, there must be a contract between a payee (e.g. a merchant) and a payment service provider. Secondly, the contract must stipulate that the payee is entitled to receive money from someone.
In principle, it is also conceivable that the money is paid to the payee by a third party. Acquisition business includes, for example, acquiring for MasterCard and Visa payment cards, as well as the acceptance of payments for merchants from other payment methods (such as direct debits or credit transfers).