Mastercard Considers Selling Vocalink UK Payments Business

Mastercard is reportedly considering a sale of its U.K. retail payments business Vocalink. These discussions come at a pivotal moment for Vocalink, which provides the systems upholding key parts of the British financial infrastructure. The company is readying itself to seek a contract to build a new payments platform for the U.K.. Talks are at a very early stage. Mastercard acquired a majority stake in Vocalink from a group of 18 British banks in 2016 for 700 million pounds. A deal for a 51% stake in the company could be worth roughly 400 million pounds ($535 million). One potential buyer could be DeliveryCo, a new company backed by many of the U.K.’s top banks and payment firms that was established to handle the procurement and funding of the next iteration of the country’s retail payment system. However, a deal with Mastercard is unlikely to happen before next year.