The Paypers sat down with Chris Pirkner, CEO at Bluecode, to discuss European payments sovereignty, cross-border interoperability, and understand the concept of Payment Roaming
The Bluecode CEO frames payments not as a mature utility, but as the next major digital format shift. His argument is straightforward: Europe already has many of the ingredients for sovereign payments, yet still lacks the interoperability needed to turn domestic strength into continental scale.
From fragmentation to format shift
Chris compares today’s payments market with earlier transformations in music, video, and advertising: industries that moved from physical formats to digital platforms, and then towards globally interoperable models. In his view, payments are now at that same inflection point. Cards delivered scale and reliability, but mobile-first commerce, tokenisation, software-led acceptance, and changing regulation are rewriting the technical, legal, and commercial foundations of the market.
That matters particularly in Europe, where strong domestic schemes coexist with persistent fragmentation. National systems have local trust, bank relationships, and established acceptance, but they do not yet form a seamless European experience. Pirkner’s central point is that sovereignty should not be reduced to rhetoric. In practice, it means control over the rulebook, governance, core technical components, and the freedom to operate critical payment infrastructure within Europe.
Why roaming is the practical path
Rather than building an entirely new network from scratch, Pirkner argues for a roaming model. The analogy is telecoms: consumers keep their domestic provider, but use services abroad through shared technical and legal frameworks. Applied to payments, that would allow a consumer to use a familiar national payment method across borders without abandoning domestic rails or re-onboarding into a new scheme.
The interview showcases how that idea connects to live infrastructure. Pirkner describes partnerships designed to extend acceptance while preserving European control on the payer side, including arrangements with Discover and Alipay+. The broader ambition is not only European interoperability, but a more resilient network architecture in which transactions can be routed across multiple connections rather than through a single dependency.
For banks, merchants, and policymakers, the underlying question is speed. Pirkner contends that Europe no longer has the luxury of debating the principle of sovereignty without executing on interoperability. His conclusion is that the missing component is less technology than alignment: a workable public-private path that links existing assets quickly enough to matter.
The video interview adds depth to that argument, particularly where the discussion turns from abstract sovereignty to implementation, governance, and the trade-offs between rebuilding and connecting. It is a useful contribution to a debate that is becoming harder for the European payments sector to postpone.
About the interviewee
Christian Pirkner is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Bluecode. He is a founding member of the European Mobile Payment Systems Association (EMPSA), currently chairs the EMPSA Communications & Media Working Group, and is also a member of the European Payments Council (EPC). Previously, he founded and successfully exited several technology companies serving clients worldwide. He holds a PhD in Finance from the University of St. Gallen and New York University.
About the company
Bluecode is a European mobile payment system enabling cashless payments via barcode, QR code, and NFC directly out of digital wallets, bank, and partner apps into the largest point-of-sale payment network in the world. Bluecode is either directly linked to the user’s bank account, digital wallet, or used as a prepaid solution. Bluecode collaborates with international networks such as Discover Network, Alipay+, and EMPSA (European Mobile Payment Systems Association) and implements legal, technical, and commercial interoperability with over 50 payment schemes around the world, building a global acceptance network of over 200 million merchants. The Bluecode payment technology is available in the Bluecode app and can be integrated into any digital wallet, bank, or partner app , enabling payments at point-of-sale globally. One connection to the Bluecode scheme gives global payment reach.
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