The State Asset Management Agency (SAMA) announced the start of the privatization of the National Interbank Processing Center (Humo). The 100% government’s stake will be sold through a Public Invitation to Negotiatein three stages.

Deloitte has been chosen as the consultant. An international company (other than Deloitte) among the Big 4, will be hired to evaluate the asset.

Expressions of interest will be accepted until August 22.

About Humo

Humo was created in September 2018. It was noted then that the absence of a state processing center for processing retail payments reduces the level of security of the national payment system, does not allow for unified integration of the payment infrastructure and leads to the dominance of one monopoly system.

The Humo system appeared after a major software failure at the only processing center at that time, Uzcard, which is a private company.

The chief of Humo, Shukhrat Kurbanov, explained that the goal of decentralizing the payment system was to prevent anyone from monopolizing the market, but, on the contrary, to enable banks to become independent.

The company's authorized capital stands at 155.4 billion soums, 12 million USD. To date, more than 27 million Humo cards have been issued, with over 210 thousand points of sale and more than 6,400 ATMs.

By the Nov 30 presidential decree, the government’s stake in Humo was transferred to SAMA. In response to speculation about a possible sale, the agency stated that the transfer of Humo was not related to privatization. The presence of the interbank processing center on the balance sheet of the Central Bank led to a conflict of interest, SAMA stated then.

However, by April 19 presidential decree, the payment system was added to the list of 247 companies where state shares or blocks of shares should be put up for public auction.