Mastercard bought Vocalink in 2016 for £701 million (aprox. $938 million) from a consortium of 18 British banks. Now, Mastercard is examining the case for selling UK payments platform Vocalink back to the British banks.
According to the FT report, talks about a potential stake sale are at a very preliminary stage within Mastercard and no firm offers have been made. Any deal for a 51 per cent stake could be worth about £400mn (aprox. $535 million), says the FT, citing anonymous sources.
Vocalink’s technology underpins the Bacs direct debit system, which handles payment of 90 per cent of UK wages, the faster payments system, which processed £4.2tn of transfers in 2024, and the Link ATM network of 47,000 cash machines.
One potential buyer is believed to be DeliveryCo, a new entity backed by many of the UK’s leading banks and payment companies that was set up to run the procurement and funding of the next generation of the country’s retail payment system.
The company’s strategic importance to Mastercard is not matched by its financial performance. Vocalink made a net loss of £12.4mn in 2024 after a small profit of £1.9mn in 2023, according to its last set of results. Its revenues were up slightly at £221.5mn.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
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