Mastercard has declined to comment on the speculation linking it with the sale of its UK retail payment company Vocalink.
Mastercard is reportedly looking to sell Vocalink, its UK retail payments subsidiary, in a deal worth a reported $535m.
The global card network’s majority 51% stake in Vocalink could be sold to DeliveryCo – the new UK government-backed corporate entity to design the next generation of UK payments – according to sources which were cited by The Financial Times.
However, the rumours of a potential sale have been brushed off by Mastercard.Payment Expert reached out to Mastercard for comment, to which the company replied: “Mastercard does not comment on speculation”.
The Financial Times report revealed that Mastercard is concerned about a “strategically critical” UK payment business like Vocalink being under majority ownership by a US-based company.
DeliveryCo was established in 2026 to reduce the dependency of Visa and Mastercard’s control over the UK retail payment network.
Mastercard is believed to be in early stage talks according to two sources cited by The Financial Times.
Vocalink was acquired by Mastercard in July 2016 for $920m (£700m) so the company could “play a more strategic role in the UK payments ecosystem”.
Vocalink was home to the ZAPP mobile payments app, which supports the Fast ACH payment rail. The company also operates the BACS payment rail for direct debit payments, the Faster Payments real-time account-to-account rail, and the ATM network LINK.
If the rumours turn out to be true, a potential Vocalink sale would continue a trend of Mastercard offloading assets after reports emerged several months ago that the company was looking to sell Nets, the Danish real-time payments company that it acquired for $3.2bn in 2019.
The Vocalink sale would also suggest that Mastercard is placing greater emphasis on stablecoins leading the next generation of real-time, instant payments following its $1.8bn acquisition of BVNK in March 2026.
UK pressure on Mastercard?
DeliveryCo being one touted suitor to acquire Vocalink from Mastercard may come as a surprise to only a small handful of people as it is led by several UK banks and financial institutions, and overseen by the Bank of England.
Vocalink’s majority share before Mastercard acquired it a decade ago was controlled by up to 18 UK banks and financial institutions, suggesting some of those previous shareholders would like to bring the company back under its remit as part of the DeliveryCo cohort of brands.
Supporting DeliveryCo’s attempts to modernise British retail payments is the Bank of England’s Retail Payments Infrastructure Board (RPIB), a senior advisory group which has recently called for industry responses on how to eventually replace BACS and Faster Payments.
These new payment rails will also act as an alternative Visa and Mastercard in the event of possible power outages, which happened in June during England’s World Cup game against Ghana where Global Payments experienced an outage to its terminals.
DeliveryCo and RPIB are also exploring how to popularise account-to-account payments in a similar vein to Brazil’s PIX or India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI). A2A payments bypass card networks like Mastercard, offering merchants faster settlement and lower acceptance costs.
