EN
A scattered element of a Banach algebra 𝓐 is an element with at most countable spectrum. The set of all scattered elements is denoted by 𝓢(𝓐). The scattered radical $𝓡_{sc}(𝓐)$ is the largest ideal consisting of scattered elements. We characterize in several ways central elements of 𝓐 modulo the scattered radical. As a consequence, it is shown that the following conditions are equivalent: (i) 𝓢(𝓐) + 𝓢(𝓐) ⊂ 𝓢(𝓐); (ii) 𝓢(𝓐)𝓢(𝓐) ⊂ 𝓢(𝓐); (iii) $[𝓢(𝓐),𝓐] ⊂ 𝓡_{sc}(𝓐)$.