Fifteen mobile payment systems joined the European Mobile Payment Systems Association (EMPSA), uniting more than 90 million mobile payment users, more than one million merchant acceptance points and hundreds of European banks, handling several billion transactions per year. EMPSA’s vision is to enable seamless mobile payment across Europe by providing roaming solutions among participating payment systems.
2022
Interoperability between EMPSA members Bancomat, Twint, and Bluecode
2022
Interoperability between EMPSA members Bancomat, Twint, and Bluecode
2022
Successful Production Testing
2021
EMPSA Conference Events - Introductions and Inspirations
2020
EMPSA's First Interoperable Transactions - a Swiss Consumer in Germany
2020
Live Interoperability Event - Executive Summary
2020
EMPSA's First Interoperable Transactions - Norwegian and Swedish Consumers at a Danish Point-of-Sale
The smartphone as a method of payment has been successfully introduced in several European countries, experiencing significant user and usage growth over the last years. Fifteen leading mobile payment providers combining millions of users agree to foster collaboration and international payment through an association, which was founded in Zurich, Switzerland. EMPSA covers Belgium (Bancontact Payconiq), Bosnia Herzegovina (BAMCARD), Germany and Austria (Bluecode), Denmark and Finland (MobilePay), Portugal (SIBS/MB WAY), Spain (Bizum), Slovenia (Bankart), Sweden (Swish), Switzerland (TWINT), Norway (VIPPS), Italy (BANCOMAT & Plick), Poland (BLIK), Bulgaria (BORICA) and Netherlands (iDeal). More countries and mobile payment systems are expected to join the association soon.
The headquarters of the EMPSA is located in Zurich, Switzerland. The association generally fosters collaboration to enable the international use of mobile payments systems and is chaired by Christian Pirkner, Executive Chairman of Bluecode.
„The interoperability of European payment systems will strengthen Europe as an economic power, because a sovereign and independent European payment system can react to pressure from overseas more resiliently and more agile. Not just European banks will benefit from this innovation, but especially merchants and consumers,” Christian Pirkner explains.
EMPSA founding team members from left to right: Claus Bunkenborg (MobilePay), Tiago Bianchi de Aguiar (SIBS/ MB WAY), Mark Majgaard Wraa-Hansen (MobilePay), Nathalie Vandepeute (Bancontact Payconiq), Gonçalo Amaro (SIBS/MB WAY), Philippe Kempeners (Bancontact Payconiq), Christian Pirkner (Bluecode), Georg Schardt (Bluecode), Bjorn Skjelbred (VIPPS), Joseph Hajj (Swish), Søren Mose (TWINT), Markus Kilb (TWINT), Anton Stadelmann (TWINT)
BLIK
EMPSA Member
BANCOMAT Pay
EMPSA Member
With this cross-border cooperation we want to meet the wish of our users to be able to use their local mobile payment system internationally.
Anton Stadelmann
EMPSA Member, Bluecode
We are very happy joining EMPSA. Together with the other members of the association we can take a big step forward to answer an increasing demand of our customers of being able to pay everywhere in Europe with their favorite mobile payment solution BANCOMAT Pay
Alessandro Zollo
EMPSA Member, Bancomat Pay
Together with the other members of the EMPSA association we can take a big step forward to answer an increasing demand of our customers of being able to pay everywhere in Europe with their favorite mobile payment solutions
Dariusz Mazurkiewicz
EMPSA Member, BLIK
The ability to carry out Swish payments outside of Sweden is a high priority among our eight million users. With EMPSA, we are now taking a significant step towards enabling it, while also strengthening our European collaboration between wallets.
Pär Ekroth
EMPSA Board Member, Swish
EMPSA is the key initiative for Europe to create its own standards and to build a competitive interoperable European framework to win back lost terrain in the payments space. Bluecode is humbled to co-chair the working group on interoperability and eager to contribute with regards to swift cross border mobile payment interoperability between all EMPSA solution providers.
Christian Pirkner
EMPSA Chairman, Bluecode
The rapid growth in mobile payments will lead to an increasing user demand of being able to pay everywhere in Europe with your mobile payment solution, leaving cards and physical wallets behind. EMPSA can be vital in achieving interoperability within a short timeframe.
Morten Kjelsø
EMPSA Board Member, MobilePay
We are particularly proud that Bancontact Payconiq Company plays a leading role in the new association as a founding member. We firmly believe that collaboration between successful domestic systems can make the life of the consumer and the merchant much easier. Our goal is that consumers use their preferred, reliable local app to pay abroad. We are confident that working together under the umbrella of the association will promote interoperability of mobile payment solutions and will build a true European alternative, so important for the European economy.
Valentina Caruso
EMPSA Board Member, Bancontact Payconiq
We believe that together with the EMPSA and the other associates we can play a key role in fostering interoperability as well as collaboration among payments actors in Europe favoring the growth of the payments ecosystem in general. This will make it possible to better satisfy European customers’ needs and expectations.
Donato Vadruccio
EMPSA Member, Plick by PayDo
Bankart's expectation from joining EMPSA is to actively cooperate in establishing European interoperability for mobile payments. Because we strongly believe Instant Payments initiated over mobile channels will be the new normal and have the potential to displace cash we have together with Slovenian banks set out in building an Ecosystem in which Flik scheme plays a significant role. Flik scheme enables interoperability of different solutions and addresses open questions when initiating mobile payments in P2P and P2M scenarios in Slovenia. To fully benefit from mobile payments similar arrangements are required on European level and we want to play an active role in this.
Rainer Schamberger
EMPSA Member, Bankart
SIBS, with a track record of over 30 years of innovation and cooperation in payments, is proud to contribute to the birth of EMPSA, hoping to leverage its success with MB WAY in Portugal to foster collaboration and unlock new possibilities in the European cross-border space.
Tiago Bianchi de Aguiar
EMPSA Board Member, SIBS / MB WAY
We want our citizens to be able to pay with their local mobile app KVIKO anywhere in Europe. United under EMPSA european mobile payment systems are for the first time collaborating to enable interoperable cross-border payments. For that reason, we at Bamcard are delighted to be part of this historical initiative in the european payment industry.
Alma Ahmic
EMPSA Member, BAMCARD
The vision behind EMPSA is to unify the payment landscape across European borders and technologies. One of the first EMPSA-initiated projects is the establishment and implementation of a cross-platform framework, connecting all EMPSA members and allowing for effortless payment processing for millions of customers. To underscore the importance of interoperability EMPSA has already set up a working group to establish joint system interoperability. This working group is co-chaired by Christian Pirkner of Bluecode and Bjørn Skjelbred from VIPPS.
Technical interoperability is an important first step. However, besides workflows and APIs it will need a legal and commercial framework how to proceed in case of cross-system transactions, affected by different legislation and business environments. This is topic of the working group which is chaired by Rene Hägeli of TWINT and Peter Neubauer from Bluecode.
