British bank bosses will meet this week to discuss establishing an alternative national payments network to Visa and Mastercard.

The idea has gained traction as fears mount that Donald Trump could at some point turn off international payment systems for political reasons.

The meeting, chaired by Barclays UK boss Vim Maru, will bring together City figures who will fund a national payments company.

US giants Visa and Mastercard dominate the payment landscape. Most card transactions in the UK are made using payment systems owned by the two companies, according to the Payment Systems Regulator.

Mastercard says this week's meeting is part of a longstanding process to build the next generation of payments in the UK.

While a City-funded and government-backed alternative has been discussed for years, plans have stepped up a notch in the face of Trump’s recent threats against Nato allies.

Should the US President shut off Visa and Mastercard’s payment infrastructure, the disruption could be huge. 

In Russia, where businesses are reliant on the two companies for 60 per cent of payments, sanctions left ordinary people without access to cash.

‘If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s,’ one executive told the Guardian. ‘Of course, we need a sovereign payments system.’

Visa and Mastercard’s systems are used by Santander, Natwest, Nationwide, Lloyds, Coventry Building Society and the ATM network Link.

A Mastercard spokesperson said: 'Recent reporting about the Retail Payments Infrastructure Board (RPIB) Delivery Company regarding the National Payments Vision has been mis-represented. 

'The work of the board was announced recently and Mastercard welcomes the opportunity to help shape the future of payments in the UK.

'The meeting this week is part of the longstanding and orderly process that was kick-started with the publication of the Government's National Payments Vision in 2024.

'Both the meeting itself and its timing sit squarely within this longstanding and orderly programme. The payment industry has never been more competitive, providing consumers and businesses with a wide range of ways to pay and get paid.'

European leaders are also looking at locally owned networks that would not be vulnerable to the whims of foreign powers.

Aurore Lalucq, the chair of the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, has warned that relying on US companies could prove disastrous.

She said: ‘Visa, Mastercard… the urgent issue is our payment system. Trump can cut everything off.

‘The rest is poetry. I urgently request that the commission organise a European Airbus for payment systems: you can’t say you weren’t warned.’

ECB President Christine Lagarde has also called for Europe to break its dependence on US infrastructure, saying Europe needs its own system ‘urgently’.

Earlier this month, the European Payments Initiative and the EuroPA Alliance signed an agreement to build a pan-European payment network covering 130million users across 13 countries.

The system, built around digital wallet ‘Wero’, will allow Europeans to pay and transfer money across borders.