Mastercard has officially announced the completion of its £700 million acquisition of VocaLink after being granted regulatory approval by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last month.

Vocalink’s key bank account-based technology will allow Mastercard to expand beyond card-based payments to drive the major types of electronic payment transactions.

Vocalink powers real-time bank account-based payments in some of the world’s largest financial markets: the UK, Singapore and Thailand, with the US scheduled to go live later this year.

Michael Miebach, chief product officer, Mastercard, said: “This is a transformational deal. This acquisition brings Vocalink’s world class technology and world class people to Mastercard at a time of continued change in payments. I am eager for what the future will bring: more innovation, inclusion and choice that lets people, businesses and governments pay the way they want.”

The Vocalink technology will enable Mastercard to further innovate retail transactions and expand in payment flows such as person-to-person, business-to-business and government disbursements.

Paul Stoddart, CEO of VocaLink, added: “Joining the Mastercard family brings tremendous new opportunities to Vocalink, our customers and our team. Our home base of the UK of course remains a top priority as we continue to innovate on our bank account-based payments platform and drive value through services such as fraud analytics and consulting. We also look forward to drawing on Mastercard offerings and expertise to expand to more countries and more customers around the world.”

The announcement follows news that Mastercard posted better than expected revenue and earnings per share figures for the first quarter of this year. Net revenue rose 12 per cent on last year in Q1 2017 to $2.73 billion while earnings per share came in at $1. Analysts had anticipated $2.65 billion in revenue and $0.95 in earnings per share.

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