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UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems.
The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur.
The City-funded, but government-backed, initiative has been under discussion for years. However, Trump’s recent threats against Nato allies over Greenland have amplified concerns that an over-reliance on US companies could put UK payments – and the wider economy – at risk.
About 95% of UK card transactions are made using payment systems owned by Mastercard and Visa, according to a 2025 report by the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator. That dominance has become far more relevant as cash use across the country continues to decline.
“If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s,” before cards dominated the UK economy, and businesses wholly relied on cash, one executive familiar with the project told the Guardian. “Of course, we need a sovereign payments system.”
The potential disruption could be vast. In Russia, where businesses are reliant on Visa and Mastercard for 60% of payments, US sanctions that forced the companies to turn off their services left ordinary people stranded without access to funds and unable to buy goods.
Similar concerns are being raised in the EU, where politicians have taken a vocal stance on building locally owned networks that could not be turned off on a whim by foreign powers. The chair of the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, Aurore Lalucq, issued a stark warning that went viral last month about relying on US companies for such an essential service.
“Visa, Mastercard … the urgent issue is our payment system. Trump can cut everything off,” Lalucq said. “The rest is poetry. I urgently request that the commission organise a European Airbus for payment systems: you can’t say you weren’t warned.”
However, the UK is taking a less aggressive stance, with Visa and Mastercard working within the initiative.
Both companies are part of the new funders group, giving them a stake and a say alongside a large number of banks and payment companies including Santander UK, NatWest, Nationwide, Lloyds Banking Group, the ATM network body Link, and Coventry Building Society.
While UK officials have stressed the need for a backup, they have stopped short of calling out US threats as the source of their nervousness.
The Bank of England deputy governor Sarah Breeden also said in a recent speech: “In the context of a challenging and changing cyber and operational risk environment, it could provide a degree of extra resilience in the UK payments landscape, as an additional payment rail on the rare occasion of operational disruption to existing rails.”
Joe Garner, the former Nationwide chief executive who worked as a government adviser on Rachel Reeves’ national payments vision, and who led a 2023 independent review on payments, told the Guardian: “Regardless of any political developments, the UK needs to do this. We needed to before, we need to now … I don’t think that’s changed by recent events.”
City funders will be in charge of creating the legal structure, leadership plans and future funding models of the new payments alternative, which is known as DeliveryCo. The Bank, meanwhile, will develop infrastructure blueprints that will be handed over to the group next year.
It is understood that the new payments system is likely to be in place by 2030.
Mastercard and Visa said they were committed to the UK and welcomed competition.
Visa said that included providing consumers and business with “access to innovative, secure digital payments with the highest levels of resilience and reliability. We welcome the industry progress on account-to-account payments in the UK. We believe competition between multiple solutions, supported by a level playing field, will deliver choice, innovation and economic growth in the UK.”
Mastercard said: “Mastercard has been fully invested in the UK for decades, delivering consumers and businesses with a wide range of convenient, simple and secure ways to pay and get paid. We remain committed to drive commerce here at home and across the globe by helping businesses of all sizes grow and meet the needs of their customers.”
The trade association UK Finance, which has been providing administrative support to the DeliveryCo project, declined to comment.
The Treasury was contacted for comment. The Bank of England declined to comment.
