Worldpay, Inc.

Financial TechnologyFounded 1971- HQ today: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Founders

Who Founded Worldpay?

Nick Ogden · Founded 1971 · HQ today: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Who founded Worldpay?

Worldpay was founded by Nick Ogden in 1971. It is now led by Charles Drucker.

Founders: Nick Ogden
Founded: 1971
Headquarters: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Number of founders: 1
Current CEO: Charles Drucker (since 2024)

Where was Worldpay founded?: Worldpay was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States in 1971.
When was Worldpay founded?: Worldpay was founded in 1971.
Who started Worldpay?: Worldpay was founded by Nick Ogden.
How old is Worldpay?: Worldpay is 55 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

The company that is now Worldpay, Inc. started in 1971, when Fifth Third Bank formed Midwest Payment Systems to provide electronic funds transfer services to banks. It added merchant services in 1991, renamed itself Fifth Third Processing Solutions in 2003, became a joint venture between Fifth Third and Advent International in 2009, and adopted the Vantiv name in 2011. The Worldpay brand came from the UK: Nick Ogden launched WorldPay as an online payment service in 1997, and it later became part of Royal Bank of Scotland's card processing arm. RBS sold that business to Advent International and Bain Capital in 2010, it listed in London in 2015 as Worldpay Group, and Vantiv acquired it in 2018 and took the Worldpay name.

Nick Ogden

Background

British entrepreneur who launched the original WorldPay online payment service in 1997.

Role at Worldpay, Inc.

Nick Ogden founded WorldPay in 1997 as one of the early services for accepting card payments online in multiple currencies. The business later became part of Royal Bank of Scotland's card processing operations. The current Worldpay, Inc. traces its corporate lineage to Fifth Third's Midwest Payment Systems and Vantiv, which acquired Worldpay Group in 2018 and adopted its name. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Worldpay, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Charles Drucker

Chief Executive Officer (2024 - 2026)

2024 – 2026

Guided Worldpay's separation from FIS and its sale to Global Payments.

Philip Jansen

Chief Executive Officer, Worldpay Group plc (2013 - 2018)

2013 – 2018

Serving as CEO, he aggressively modernized the incredibly complex, legacy payment routing infrastructure before moving on to lead BT Group.

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Who Founded Worldpay? FAQ

Who was Nick Ogden and how did he create Worldpay in the UK?

British tech entrepreneur Nick Ogden founded Worldpay in 1997 in Jersey, Channel Islands, inventing the world's first multi-currency online payment system to allow early internet shoppers to pay in local currencies.

How did Fifth Third Bank found the US corporate lineage in 1971?

In 1971, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank established Midwest Payment Systems to pioneer automated electronic funds transfer (EFT) networks and commercial bank card processing, which eventually became Vantiv and modern Worldpay.

How was the UK Worldpay acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)?

National Westminster Bank (NatWest) invested in Nick Ogden's Worldpay in the late 1990s; following NatWest's takeover by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), RBS acquired full control of Worldpay in 2002.

Why did RBS sell Worldpay to private equity in 2010?

Following the 2008 financial crisis and the British government's bailout of RBS, European Union antitrust regulators ordered RBS to divest non-core assets, prompting the sale of Worldpay to Advent International and Bain Capital.

What subsequent fintech ventures did founder Nick Ogden launch?

After exiting Worldpay, Nick Ogden founded ClearBank in 2015, the UK's first new clearing bank in over 250 years, and launched several other cutting-edge financial infrastructure ventures.

How did the separate UK and US corporate lineages eventually merge?

In 2018, Fifth Third's spun-out processing engine (Vantiv in Ohio) bought Nick Ogden's original UK business (Worldpay in London) for $10.4 billion, uniting the dual corporate lineages under the unified Worldpay brand.

What technological innovation did Nick Ogden achieve in 1994?

Prior to launching Worldpay, Ogden founded Wine Wave in 1994, recognized as one of the world's first secure commercial eCommerce websites, which inspired him to solve the problem of international online payments.

What is the historical legacy of Worldpay's founders?

Nick Ogden in the UK and Fifth Third Bank's engineers in Ohio laid the foundations for the global digital economy, enabling billions of consumers to transact safely across physical cards and the World Wide Web.

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