Payment account portability is the regulatory phrasing for the idea covered in full under bank account portability. The word "payment" signals that the speaker is using the legal vocabulary of European payments law, where a payment account is any account used to make and receive payments, whether it is held at a bank or at another licensed provider.
The distinction matters because European rules do not only apply to banks. Under the Second Payment Services Directive, a payment institution or an electronic money institution can also hold payment accounts for customers. When policymakers discuss payment account portability, they are asking how easily a consumer can move such an account, and the payments linked to it, from one provider to another.
In the European Union the main legal tool is the Payment Accounts Directive, which obliges providers to offer a switching service for consumer payment accounts held in the same currency within a member state. It stops short of number portability: the customer gets a new account identifier, and the old and new providers move standing orders, incoming credit transfers and direct debit mandates between them. The mechanics are explained under payment account switching. Studies of full identifier portability, sometimes linked to IBAN portability, have so far not led to legislation.