UK banks to explore a national alternative to Visa and MasterCard

Barclays UK CEO Vim Maru will chair talks this Thursday with major City institutions on creating a domestic card payments scheme for the UK. The group is expected to finance a new payments entity designed to ensure continuity of the UK economy if the existing card networks were disrupted.

Source: The Guardian

➡️ Why this matter

This mirrors a broader geopolitical shift toward payments sovereignty. The EU has been actively reducing dependence on US-dominated card rails. Now the UK appears to be weighing similar strategic autonomy considerations.

According to the 2025 report from the UK Payment Systems Regulator, roughly 95% of UK card transactions run on networks owned by Visa and Mastercard.

“If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s,” one executive familiar with the project told the Guardian.

Recent geopolitical tensions, including US political pressure on NATO allies, have sharpened concerns that over-reliance on foreign-owned infrastructure could expose UK payments and broader economic activity to external risk.

However unlike the EU, the UK is allowing both Visa and MasterCard to be 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.

Is this a credible push toward national infrastructure resilience, or largely symbolic given Visa and MasterCard's involvement? Leave your comments below.

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