Vocalink

Vocalink, a Mastercard company worked with Erlang Solutions to build a scalable, fault-tolerant system for real-time payments.

The Company

Vocalink, a Mastercard company, is a major player in the global payments ecosystem. Its technology powers real-time payments, settlements, direct debits, and over 55,000 ATMs in the UK. Trusted by financial institutions, corporations, and governments, Vocalink ensures secure and reliable transactions. As demand for faster payment services grew, Vocalink needed to scale its technology to handle increasing transaction volumes while maintaining seamless, reliable operations. To meet this, they turned to Erlang Solutions (ESL) for a robust, future-proof solution.

Tackling real-time payment challenges

Vocalink needed a payment switch capable of handling instant bank transfers and bill payments at scale. The system had to process millions of transactions in real-time, 24/7- with no room for downtime or delays.

Their priority was an architecture that could manage high transaction volumes securely, with maximum fault tolerance and reliability—similar to telecommunications systems.

Partnering with Erlang Solutions

Recognising the need for telecom-grade reliability, Vocalink turned to Erlang Solutions for their expertise and proven track record in building highly reliable systems. With several team members having contributed to the original development of the Erlang programming language at Ericsson, ESL was the ideal partner to design Vocalink’s critical payment switch.

The Erlang programming language—responsible for powering 90% of global internet traffic and nearly all phone calls—was chosen for its ability to handle massive concurrency with exceptional fault tolerance, making it a perfect fit for real-time payments. 

Delivering a reliable solution

Erlang Solutions worked with Vocalink to build a highly reliable payment switch using Erlang’s fault-tolerant architecture. The system was designed to process millions of transactions concurrently, ensuring real-time payments without failure.

The new Global Instant Payment System (IPS) powers Vocalink’s real-time payments, providing 100% uptime reliability for banks, businesses, and governments worldwide. It also offers the scalability to handle increasing transaction volumes, without sacrificing performance.

Driving innovation for future payments

The new system allows Vocalink to process millions of transactions simultaneously without interruption. Its fault-tolerant design ensures transactions are always completed in real-time, while its scalability keeps pace with growing demand.

By collaborating with Erlang Solutions, Vocalink can quickly adapt to market needs and enhance its services, maintaining its leadership in the global payments industry.

The Payments Switch is highly fault tolerant yet offers massive concurrency. This is critical to payment transactions. At the same time the development project cooperation with Erlang Solutions was agile and responsive, giving us the opportunity to explore the possibilities to support our clients.

Adam Kennedy Product Director at Vocalink

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