Bank of England fines Mastercard’s Vocalink £11.9m over compliance failures

A Mastercard-owned company behind part of the UK’s payments system has been fined £11.9 million by the Bank of England for failing to comply with its requirements.

Vocalink fell short of its obligations in relation to its risk management and governance framework, according to the Bank.

In 2021, it was asked by the central bank to take remediation action in response to issues and weaknesses in its systems and controls.

However, the firm failed to comply with the requirements by the February 2022 deadline, and was found to have an “ineffective risk management framework, combined with weaknesses in its controls, governance arrangements and escalation processes”.

Obligation

Sarah Breeden, the Bank’s deputy governor for financial stability, said Vocalink “fell short of its obligation”, adding: “Its failure to comply with that direction in full has resulted in a significant fine.”

The Bank said it was the first time it has fined a financial market infrastructure firm.

The fine was reduced from £20 million due to Vocalink admitting to the compliance failure early on and agreeing to resolve the matter.

Vocalink, which became part of US payments giant Mastercard in 2017, says it processes more than 90% of salaries, 70% of household bills, and 98% of state benefit payments in the UK.

It runs the technical infrastructure that processes billions of automated payments each year on behalf of the Bankers’ Automated Clearing System (Bacs).

Improvements

Its technology also powers an ATM network of more than 47,000 machines.

A spokesman for Vocalink said it was “pleased to resolve this matter which related to issues identified in 2020”.

“Since then, we’ve delivered a number of improvements,” the firm said.

“The historic issues related to internal systems and controls and had no impact on the service we delivered to the UK’s consumers and businesses.”