Overview

• The Bank of England levied the £11.9 million fine for Vocalink’s failure to comply fully with its 2021 direction on strengthening risk management and governance.
• Regulators cited an ineffective integrated risk framework alongside weaknesses in controls, governance arrangements and risk escalation processes.
• Vocalink missed a February 2022 deadline to remediate issues identified in a 2020 review of its core payment systems.
• The penalty was trimmed from an initial £20 million after Vocalink admitted the breaches early and cooperated with the Bank’s investigation.
• Vocalink, owned by Mastercard since 2017, processes over 90 percent of UK salaries, 70 percent of household bills and 98 percent of state benefit payments and says services were unaffected.