VocaLink
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| Private | |
| Industry | Payments |
| Founded | July 2, 2007 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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David Yates (CEO) Sir John Gieve (Chairman) |
| Owner | Consortium of 18 banks and building societies including Barclays plc, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and Santander |
| Website | www.vocalink.com |
VocaLink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom, created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system, the Direct Debit system, the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATM’s and the UK Faster Payments systems.
VocaLink processes over 90% of UK salaries, more than 70% of household bills and 98% of state benefits. In 2013 the company processed over 10.5 billion UK payments with a value of over £5 trillion. In July 2016 MasterCard purchased a 92% stake in the company, with the remainder to be held by UK banks for a period of three years.
In 1968, the Joint Stock Banks Clearing Committee chaired by Dennis Gladwell, set-up the Inter-Bank Computer Bureau to modernise the existing paper-based standing order system. Secure electronic funds transfer between banks was introduced from later that year, significantly reducing both the processing time and human error associated with paper-based transactions, particularly bulk payments. In 1971 the company adopted the name "Bankers Automated Clearing Services Limited", soon shortened to Bacs, which was formally adopted as the company's name in 1985.
In November 1998 HM Treasury commissioned a review of competition within the UK banking sector, to be chaired by Sir Don Cruickshank. Reporting in March 2000, The Cruickshank Report of competition within the UK banking sector recommended that:
In response, on 1 December 2003, Bacs Payment Schemes Ltd (BPSL) was split from Bacs Limited. BPSL was established as a not for profit company with members from the banking industry, the purpose of which is to promote the use of automated payment schemes and govern the rules of the Bacs scheme. Bacs Limited owns the infrastructure to run the Bacs scheme. Bacs Limited was permitted to continue to use the Bacs name for one year, becoming Voca Limited on 12 October 2004.
LINK Interchange Network Ltd was formed in 1985 to create interoperability between ATMs across the United Kingdom. It became an international network in the 1990s through connection with the MasterCard and Visa networks. In October 2002 LINK launched the first service that used ATMs as a retail channel, enabling the facility to top-up a mobile phone at an ATM, bringing banking and mobile phones together for the consumer.
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Wikipedia