According to Section 1 para. 17 of the German Payment Services Supervision Act (ZAG) and Section 2 para. 8 of the German Payment Accounts Act (ZKG), a payment account is defined as an account in the name of one or more payment service users, which is used for the execution of payment transactions.
Significant hereby is the occurrence of payment transactions, which means that e-money accounts can also be payment accounts. If the account is only used for the clearing of receivables (e.g. a settlement or shadow account), then the account can’t be classified as a payment account.