Paving the way to European payment sovereignty: a closer look at Bluecode and its payment roaming approach

Following an in-depth conversation with Bluecode Co-Founder & CEO Chris Pirkner, The Paypers explores the company’s vision for the future of European payments, with a particular focus on the current state of Bluecode’s payment roaming model.

History shows that every major industry eventually hit a point where its underlying format stops to resonate with how people live, consume, or transact. Music went through this when CDs made room for streaming. Video experienced it when online platforms made DVDs redundant. In advertising, digital targeting overshadowed traditional methods.

Payments are now facing a similar format-changing moment too and as history tells, such a shift presents a significant opportunity to change the game. It represents a unique opportunity for Europe to redefine its role in payments and establish a framework for globally interoperable rules developed on the continent.

Through this article, The Paypers examines why payments are undergoing a format change, what requirements and challenges come with interoperability, and how the Bluecode approach represents a viable solution to achieve European payment sovereignty.

A closer look at Bluecode’s vision

Chris Pirkner has been at the forefront of change in music, video, and advertising digitisation. After returning to Europe from Silicon Valley in the early 2010s, he realised that a similar shift was about to happen in the payments world: from paper to plastic to phone, and with it, the opportunity to create space for a pan-European payment system. Especially considering that no major global payment solution has been created under the leadership of European companies, and the rules on how money flows from A to B are mandated from outside of Europe.

A little more than a decade ago, it was still unclear which technology would dominate on mobile devices,  from QR codes to NFC, as well as other technologies, such as beacons, that have since disappeared, but with the smartphone gaining significant traction, it quickly became clear that this format change represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for European payment sovereignty.

At that time, Bluecode was set up on a technology originally developed as a proof of concept. Still, at that time, the need for Europe’s digital sovereignty was recognised by only a few, and often the focus was on the technical execution of how mobile payments could work. However, when Bluecode was founded, a legal and commercial framework was built in from the outset, with the ambition to create a truly pan-European payment scheme with global acceptance, represented by a unique transaction token that unites the technical, legal, and commercial rules. The ‘blue code for Europe’ has since become the brand Bluecode.

Over the past years, Bluecode has added partner banks on the issuing as well as acquiring side and co-founded the European Mobile Payment Systems Association (EMPSA). Since then, Bluecode continued to build its solution and further developed the platform now known as the Bluecode Interoperability Hub with the concept to roam into other payment networks to achieve global acceptance.

Fast forward, Bluecode is available for millions of Europeans and live around the world. And at the same time, today, the discussion around the need for European payment sovereignty has become a top priority.

Building a sovereign future for European payments

Europe, a continent with a historical relationship to cash, but also domestic payment systems, strong banking systems, and world-leading regulatory frameworks, experiences significant growth in mobile-first payment experiences. Still, the continent struggles with dependence on legacy systems, fragmented infrastructures, and cross-border barriers that, so far, have stopped domestic solutions from scaling cross-continent.

In this environment, Bluecode has developed over the past decade what it calls a ‘payment roaming model’, a framework that is not designed to replace current domestic payment systems, but to connect them, enable interoperability, and provide a path to European sovereignty through connecting existing solutions.

‘We have world-class domestic payment systems in Europe,’ says Bluecode’s CEO, Chris Pirkner. ‘The problem is not capability. It’s connectivity. We simply didn’t have a way to make these systems work across borders, and this is what has become part of our mission.’

Payments, one of the last industries still dependent on legacy format parts

Today, consumers expect payments to be seamless, invisible, and native to the services they use. However, the infrastructure behind most everyday transactions still operates on frameworks designed around physical cards, settlement intermediaries, and proprietary networks.

‘Every other industry has migrated from hardware distribution to software distribution,’ Pirkner notes. ‘Payments is the last major industry still stuck in a hardware-centric mindset.’

Unlike music or video, where formats shifted from CDs to streaming, payments have not yet undergone a full digital rewrite. While instant payments, A2A solutions, and mobile wallets are gaining traction, the underlying commercial and legal models remain heavily card-centric.

This leads to tension buildup between what consumers expect and what the legacy infrastructure can deliver.

The European problem with domestic success versus continental fragmentation

Compared to the rest of the world, Europe has some of the most successful domestic systems. For example, Bizum in Spain, Bancomat in Italy, SIBS in Portugal, Swish in Sweden, Twint in Switzerland, Blik in Poland, Vipps in the Nordics, and DIAS in Greece are some of the most relevant examples.

These systems have high adoption and merchant approval rates, are trusted brands, and have reliable rails.         

However, they face one common problem: they do not interoperate, neither Europe-wide nor globally.

‘Domestic systems work beautifully in their home markets,’ Pirkner explains. ‘But Europe has never built a bridge to connect them. That’s the missing piece.’

Historically, Europe depended on international card schemes to enable cross-border functionality. This led to payment solutions frequently requiring a card rail as a precaution, despite them being mobile-first, instant, or QR; this limits sovereignty and makes innovation more complicated.

The paradoxical end result is that Europe leads in instant payments, yet a Portuguese user cannot pay effortlessly in Italy using their domestic mobile solution, despite the two countries offering advanced A2A payment solutions.

Europe’s struggles with over-regulation and lack of execution

PSD2, PSD3, Instant Payments Regulation, and the Digital Euro framework reflect Europe’s strong ambition and regulatory leadership. However, regulation alone won’t deliver interoperability.

‘We cannot legislate technical interoperability into existence,’ Pirkner warns. ‘Payments infrastructure must be built, tested, run, not just discussed in policy papers, and we have already built it.’

The main challenges faced by the European payments landscape remain:

• fragmentation across national priorities and technical standards across terminals;
• the lack of a shared retail A2A rulebook;
• limited incentives for banks to adopt non-card schemes;
• lack of a European roaming contract framework.

Europe risks repeating the pattern and lagging behind other regions, as it was previously the case for AI, cloud computing, and platform economics: despite having a strong vision, the slow execution is overshadowed by regulation.

Why PSD2 didn’t fix POS payments

While bringing benefits and contributing to the modernisation of the digital payments landscape (particularly online banking, fintech access, and A2A initiation), PSD2 did little to improve physical POS payments.

‘PSD2 APIs were built for online interactions, not for in-store commerce,’ Pirkner emphasizes. ‘Europe never created a standard way for merchants, PSPs, and banks to treat digital A2A payments at the POS.’

Without common rules for refunds, cancellations, settlement flows, and liability, which make the basic recipe for a retail transaction, domestic A2A solutions remain isolated.

This fragmentation has slowed adoption and left merchants dependent on international card schemes.

EMPSA and the first pilots for cross-border roaming

As co-founder of EMPSA (European Mobile Payment Systems Association), Bluecode helped define the specifications that enabled the first cross-border A2A mobile transactions between Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.

A user with a domestic card could pay in another country through the merchant’s domestic scheme, without requiring cards, workarounds, and without the merchant needing to adopt a foreign payment method.

‘Once we proved roaming was possible, the conversation changed,’ Pirkner says. ‘The question was no longer if Europe can connect its schemes, but how quickly it can be done.’

Since then, EMPSA standards have been adopted by multiple players, including the European Payments Alliance – EuroPA, a coalition of national payments providers working together.

Bluecode, a pan-European payment system live around the world

Bluecode decided not to build just a wallet, but a payments infrastructure running on European rails, in particular on the technical, legal, and commercial rules to enable payments to act as digital payment instruments at the POS, in ecommerce, and also P2P.

The company’s goal was to define a bank- and merchant-friendly, scheme-compatible format that:

• works across banking as well as merchant apps and has barcode, QR code and NFC acceptance;
• supports omnichannel transactions at POS, in ecommerce, and also P2P;
• can be integrated in banking apps without requiring cards;
• provides instant settlement;
• runs on the four-corner model of transactions;
• allows domestic payment brands to remain visible.

‘The magic isn’t only on the technical side,’ Pirkner says. ‘It’s also in the commercial and legal model underneath that allows payments to function end-to-end.’

It took Bluecode over a decade to build this framework, which is now deployed with major merchants and banks across Europe.

The telecom analogy: why roaming works better than replacement

One idea at the core of Bluecode’s strategy is that Europe doesn’t need one single, unified scheme to obtain interoperability. Instead, there’s a need for a roaming hub, similar to the telecom GSM model.

Prior to the introduction of global SIM roaming, European mobile users could not travel seamlessly with their home network. Today, we take this interoperability for granted.

‘Payments needs the equivalent of GSM roaming,’ Pirkner argues. ‘Domestic schemes remain domestic, but the experience becomes cross-border.’

A roaming model for payments allows:

• the user to use their home solutions (e.g., MB Way, Bizum, Vipps, Bancomat, etc.);
• the merchant to see their domestic acquiring scheme;
• a roaming agreement between the two systems, behind the scenes;
• liability, refunds, and settlement to follow predefined rules across schemes;

A roaming payments model aligns with Europe’s diversity instead of fighting against it.

The European market is ready for an A2A alternative

On the one hand, banks and merchants increasingly demand seamless settlements, lower fees, transactions without chargebacks, integrated loyalty, receipt and invoice data embedded in the solution, and digital-native refund flows. On the other hand, consumers demand mobile-first payments, no non-European dependencies, account visibility, domestic brands that they trust, and consistent experiences across borders.

However, both sides lack the necessary technical, legal, and commercial foundation to make A2A work reliably at the POS.

Bluecode, through its roaming format, seeks to contribute with shared legal contract, API structure, set of retail transaction rights, roaming logic, and scheme-agnostic acceptance layer.

‘It’s not about becoming the European scheme,’ Pirkner emphasises. ‘It’s about giving Europe the rails to connect the schemes it already has.’

The path ahead for a European way to pay

A format change means more than introducing new technologies. It means a fundamental shift in what is considered native, in what consumers expect, what merchants demand, and how institutions operate.

If Europe truly wants sovereignty in payments, it needs interoperability frameworks, shared A2A rules, technical standards for POS, ecommerce, and P2P, domestic schemes as the foundation, not roadblocks, and political and commercial support for execution.

‘Europe doesn’t need to reinvent payments,’ Pirkner concludes. ‘It needs to connect what already works, and scale it.’

The question is if Europe can seize the moment. Unlike CDs and DVDs, payment infrastructure will take some time to be replaced. The level of coordinated execution and willingness to embrace a new format needs to be unprecedented.

Bluecode continues to build momentum, expanding across European and international markets, already connecting to more than 50 QR code as well card schemes worldwide. The company is now looking to further scale its rollout with partners, be it issuing- and acquiring banks for the Bluecode scheme as well European and international payment networks for the interoperability hub. Especially the latter could become a cornerstone in Europe’s pursuit of payment sovereignty.

If successful, Europe won’t just ‘modernise payments’, it will build an infrastructure that aligns with its values, its innovation landscape, and its ambition for sovereignty.

About the author

Vlad is a Senior Editor at The Paypers, working in the Banking & Fintech team. He uses his research, content, and people skills for all activities revolving around Open Banking and Open Finance. Vlad has a degree in Biology and Molecular Genetics and an extensive background in creative writing. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn.

 

 

About Chris Pirkner

Chris Pirkner is a startup entrepreneur and currently the Chief Executive Officer of Blue Code International AG. Before founding Bluecode, he lived in Silicon Valley, where he led his two previous startups to successful exits. His companies were responsible for groundbreaking innovations in digital media recognition, music playlists, and video distribution for clients such as Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Shazam, and Netflix. Chris also holds a PhD. in Finance from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and New York University.

 

About Bluecode

 

Bluecode is a pan-European payment system that enables cashless payments via mobile phone. The system uses a one-time payment token, represented as either a barcode or QR code, which can be scanned or transmitted via NFC (Near Field Communication). Bluecode is either directly linked to the user’s bank account or used as a prepaid solution. Accepted by a wide network of merchants, Bluecode is accessible through apps from banks, merchants, and other providers, as well as through the Bluecode app. Furthermore, Bluecode can be used with existing customer loyalty programmes. Bluecode collaborates with international networks such as Alipay+, Discover Network, and EMPSA (European Mobile Payment Systems Association) to support international payment interoperability. Consequently, Bluecode is accepted worldwide.