UK’s payment regulator has fined Mastercard, along with four other companies, for anti-competitive behavior in the prepaid cards market that could have resulted in higher prices paid by local authorities to distribute welfare payments among vulnerable members of society. On Tuesday, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) imposed fines totaling more than ($44.86 million) on the five parties—MasterCard ($42.90 million), Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) ($1.25 million), allpay ($38,804), Advanced Payment Solutions (APS) ($1.03 million), and Sulion ($777). The investigations, which began in October 2017, followed a complaint made by allpay, one of the companies regarding the infringement. The companies made a deal on not competing or poaching prepaid-card customers from each other in the Great Britain market. PSR conducted unannounced searches at some of the companies’ premises as part of the investigation. These cards were used by local authorities to give out welfare allowances to the victims of domestic violence, homeless …