The European mobile payment provider Bluecode is expanding its management team: Since July 2019, Georg Schardt (51) acts as new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Bluecode and 
is responsible for cooperations with retailers and banks. The payment and e-commerce expert has more than 30 years of experience from various management positions in the financial and retail sectors. As co-initiator and managing director of Sofort GmbH (now Klarna), he was responsible for international sales and strategic cooperations in payment transactions for eight years. At the same time, he played a leading role in the development of the second EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2), which has been in force since January 2018 and must be implemented by European banks as of September 2019. Prior to this, he spent nine years in charge of Conrad Electronic’s e-commerce and distance selling business and ten years in charge of direct advertising at the e-commerce company Baur Versand.
Bluecode as a pan-European payment solution
“Over the past two years, the team around Bluecode-CEO Christian Pirkner has established an impressive technical and legal infrastructure that allows banks and retailers in Europe to redefine the value creation chain of payments. Mobile payment via smartphone will change payment in the long term. Especially when we look at Asia, optical payment methods such as Alipay or WeChat have long played a dominant role. Christian Pirkner’s vision of setting up Bluecode as a pan-European mobile payment system for Europe convinced me and I am proud to be involved in the realisation of this vision. Especially the combination of point of sales and e-commerce, but also the integration of specific customer loyalty programmes at leading retailers as well as the cooperation with the banking industry offer extraordinary opportunities, which must now be exploited“, says Bluecode-CCO Georg Schardt.
Bluecode-CEO Christian Pirkner comments: “Georg Schardt is a recognized payment expert with impressive business successes, many years of experience and an extensive network across Europe. His commercial, regulatory and technical experience in the area of account-based payment procedures, especially with regard to PSD2 and instant payment, will enable our partner banks and merchants to retain the value creation chain of mobile payments in Europe and thus to completely redesign it for the benefit of all involved.”
About Bluecode
Bluecode is the first pan-European mobile payment solution that enables cashless payments via Android smartphone, iPhone and Apple Watch combined with value-added services (Bluecode Rewards) in apps – in particular of banks and retailers. In accordance with European data protection law, no personal data is stored or transmitted on the mobile phone during the payment process. The highly secure, TAN-based payment system works with all bank giro accounts and is independent from the transmission technology (barcode, QR code, bluetooth, NFC). Renowned banks in Germany and Austria (Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, Raiffeisen Upper Austria, Hypo Tirol Bank), acquirers (BS Payone, First Cash Solution/Volksbank in der Ortenau), international banking software providers (Temenos Group AG/Switzerland) and payment platforms (Alipay/China) as well as leading retailers (Galeria Kaufhof Group, Globus Group, Konsum, Rewe subsidiaries Billa, Merkur and Bipa, Spar Austria Group) support the Europe-wide rollout and integration into cash registers, vending machines, apps of banks and retailers as well as loyalty card apps (such as mobile-pocket). Bluecode already covers more than 85% of the Austrian food retailing and many other outlets (retail & e-commerce, catering, travel, entertainment, sports stadiums). More information: www.bluecode.com
