LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England said on Wednesday it had fined payment systems firm Vocalink Ltd 11.9 million pounds ($16.19 million) for falling short of its obligation to have adequate risk management and governance arrangements.
Owned by U.S. payment processor Mastercard, Vocalink designs, builds and operates bank account-based payment systems in Britain, processing over 90% of salaries, more than 70% of household bills and 98% of state benefits, according to its website.
The fine, the first by the Bank of England for a financial market infrastructure firm, was reduced from 20 million pounds because the company admitted the failure early and agreed to resolve the matter, the central bank statement said.
Vocalink implemented a remediation programme after being directed by the BoE to fix a number of issues identified with their systems and controls, and had until February 28, 2022 to comply with the regulatory requirements.
But “an ineffective risk management framework, combined with weaknesses in its controls, governance arrangements and escalation processes meant that it failed to comply in full” by the deadline, the statement said.
Vocalink has been regulated by the BoE since April 2018 as a specified service provider – a type of financial market infrastructure firm involved in the operation of UK payments systems.
“We are pleased to resolve this matter which related to issues identified in 2020. Since then, we’ve delivered a number of improvements,” a Vocalink spokesperson said.
“The historic issues related to internal systems and controls and had no impact on the service we delivered to the UK’s consumers and businesses.”
($1 = 0.7349 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M, editing by William James)
