Mastercard weighs Vocalink sale as UK payments overhaul advances

Mastercard is assessing whether to sell control of Vocalink, the UK payments infrastructure business it acquired in 2016, back to British banks, the Financial Times reported. A possible sale of a 51 per cent stake could be valued at about £400mn, according to the FT, which cited unnamed people familiar with the discussions.

The talks remain at a very early stage within Mastercard and no formal offer has been made, the FT reported. The review comes as UK authorities and banks prepare the next stage of domestic payments infrastructure, a project with direct implications for how consumers, companies and financial institutions move money outside card networks.

Vocalink is a core provider in Britain’s payments system. Its technology supports Bacs, the direct debit system used for the payment of 90 per cent of UK wages, according to the FT report. It also underpins Faster Payments, which processed £4.2tn of transfers in 2024, and the Link network of 47,000 cash machines.

Mastercard bought Vocalink from a group of British banks in 2016. A partial sale back into domestic ownership would come amid rising political attention on the role of US card schemes in European markets, particularly as governments examine resilience, sovereignty and control over critical financial infrastructure during a period of geopolitical tension.

Potential buyer linked to new retail payments project

One possible buyer is DeliveryCo, the FT reported. DeliveryCo is a new entity backed by many of the UK’s leading banks and payments companies and was created to handle procurement and funding for the next generation of the country’s retail payments system.

Any transaction involving DeliveryCo is unlikely to be completed before next year, according to the FT’s sources, because the entity is still putting its funding and governance structure in place. Those arrangements would determine how costs, control rights and accountability are shared among the firms supporting the new system.

The Bank of England is working on a new national payments platform designed around transfers between bank accounts and transfers of tokenised deposits, rather than debit or credit card rails. Account-to-account payment systems move funds directly between bank accounts, while tokenised deposits represent commercial bank money in digital form and can be transferred on compatible infrastructure.

Vocalink has the technical capacity to compete for that contract, the FT reported. The Bank of England is wary of Vocalink’s US ownership, according to the report, a concern that could influence how policymakers and industry participants assess control of infrastructure that processes large volumes of domestic payments.

No final decision by Mastercard has been reported. The FT’s account indicates that the company is examining options rather than conducting a formal sale process, and that any deal would depend on buyer readiness, valuation and the structure of the UK’s planned payments overhaul.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.