I’ve always believed that risk is not what you see. It’s what you assume will always work.
When you tap your card at a café. When payroll runs overnight. When a business settles payments across borders in seconds.
It feels seamless. Permanent. Almost invisible.
But what if that invisible system isn’t entirely yours?
This week, senior UK bank leaders, chaired by Vim Maru of Barclays, are meeting to lay the groundwork for a domestic alternative to Visa and Mastercard.
At first glance, it sounds like market competition. But to me, it feels like something deeper. It feels like a conversation about sovereignty.
When Efficiency Becomes Exposure
Today, around 95% of UK card transactions run through Visa and Mastercard networks. For decades, that dominance symbolized progress. Standardization. Global integration. Trust.
And to be clear, both companies have been reliable pillars of modern commerce. But the world has changed.
Recent geopolitical tensions, amplified by statements from figures like Donald Trump, have forced uncomfortable questions into the open. Not because anyone expects an immediate shutdown. But because we now understand that economic infrastructure can be used as leverage.
We have seen sanctions freeze assets. We have seen financial systems weaponized. We have seen access to capital become a political tool.
The question is no longer whether these systems are efficient.
The question is: what happens if they are interrupted?
One executive reportedly remarked that losing these networks would push the UK “back to the 1950s.” That statement stayed with me. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was practical.
We live in a cash-light society. Remove the rails, and the economy doesn’t slow. It stalls.
UK is Showing Resilience
What I find interesting is that this initiative, known as DeliveryCo, is not anti-Visa or anti-Mastercard. In fact, both companies are participating in the funding group, alongside institutions like Santander UK, NatWest, Nationwide Building Society, Lloyds Banking Group, Link, and Coventry Building Society.
That tells me something important. This is about optionality. The Bank of England, through voices like deputy governor Sarah Breeden, frames the effort as resilience against operational and cyber risks. Former Nationwide chief executive Joe Garner has said the UK needed this regardless of politics.
And I agree.
Strategic backups are built in foresight.
A Lesson From Russia
If there’s one thing modern geopolitics has taught us, it is that infrastructure is never neutral.
In Russia, sanctions forced Visa and Mastercard to suspend services. Ordinary citizens (not policymakers) were the ones left stranded. Access to money, something so fundamental to daily life, became uncertain overnight. That image is difficult to ignore.
Because payments are not just financial tools. They are economic oxygen. Without them, salaries pause. Retail stops. Supply chains hesitate. Confidence erodes.
We talk about digital transformation with excitement. But digitization also centralizes risk. And centralization, without control, creates vulnerability.
What This Really Means
The UK’s goal is reportedly to have a functioning alternative by 2030. That may sound distant. But infrastructure of this scale requires careful design, governance, and funding structures.
For years, globalization encouraged consolidation. Use the best provider. Scale globally. Reduce friction. Eliminate duplication.
Now, we are entering a phase where redundancy is not inefficiency. It is a strategy because resilience has become a competitive advantage.
The deeper issue is not whether Visa and Mastercard are trustworthy. They are established, secure, and fully integrated into the financial system.
The deeper issue is whether any nation should rely almost entirely on external rails for something as fundamental as payments. This is because control does not mean isolation, but it does mean having a switch of your own.
The Final Thoughts
As someone who thinks a lot about risk, this development feels inevitable. The strongest systems are not those that assume stability. They are the ones designed for disruption.
Payment systems used to be plumbing. Invisible. Taken for granted. Today, they are geopolitical assets. And perhaps that realization, more than any political statement, is what is driving this shift.
Because when money moves, economies move. And when the ability to move money depends on someone else’s infrastructure, sovereignty becomes operational.
That’s the real conversation happening behind closed doors. And it’s one worth paying attention to.
