Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is reportedly the favourite to take over the running of Britain's Faster Payments Service.

The service is behind the UK's almost-instant payments, with most online and telephone banking payments below £100,000 now processed through the scheme.

While the regulators haven't made a decision on who should take over from Pay.UK, which currently operates the service, people close to the matter told Sky News that TCS is favoured ahead of Mastercard-owned Vocalink.

According to the news outlet, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said that appointing a new company to run the service was currently on hold until the publication of the government’s Vision for Payments strategy.

"A competitive procurement process to deliver investments to the UK's payments infrastructure was run by the operator, Pay.UK," the regulator told Sky News in a statement. "As the regulator of the UK's payment systems, we work with the Bank of England to review any proposals.

"However, the process is currently paused while we await the government's recently announced Vision for Payments, which we expect later this year."

---