Worldpay cutting ties with RBS

Worldpay is cutting its ties with Royal Bank of Scotland as the payments company prepares to move off the British state- backed lender's creaking technology systems in the coming months.

The UK-based payments processor said in its annual report yesterday that it had finished building its own system and would be able to shift customers on to it in the summer.

Operating on its own IT platform would give Worldpay the capability to process up to 20 times more transactions, the report said. The separation would also free up more cash for investment this year, as the cost of the new platform reduced, it added.

Worldpay spent £33.3 million last year on extricating its systems. Overall it has spent about £450 million on the platform to date, with a further £100 million set to be invested.

RBS sold its remaining 18 per cent stake in Worldpay in 2010 to private equity firms Bain and Advent. The bank was forced to dispose of the unit under state-aid rules attached to its £46 billion bailout during the financial crisis. Worldpay was listed in London last October at a value of £6.3 billion, marking the UK's biggest initial public offering for two years.

Bain and Advent jointly retained a 42 per cent stake.

Worldpay chief executive Philip Jansen received a £2 million share bonus for taking the company to market, the annual report revealed. Chief financial officer Rick Medlock and vice- chairman Ron Kalifa were handed £1 million each.

Worldpay swung to a profit last year of £19.1 million, reversing the £47 million loss posted in 2014, as it benefited from a surge in the number of payments processed. However some investors had hoped for higher returns.

Mr Jansen said at the time the company had invested “very heavily” in its new platform in an attempt to “drive sustainable growth” by speeding up transaction time. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016