Humo payment system being privatized

The National Interbank Processing Center (Humo) will be privatized. This is provided for by the presidential decree on additional measures to reduce state participation in the economy dated April 19.

The payment system was included in the list of 247 companies where state shares or blocks of shares should be put up for public auction.

By a presidential decree of November 30, the state share (100%) in Humo, which belonged to the CB Main Informatization Center, transferred to the State Assets Management Agency (UzSAMA).

In response to speculation about a possible sale, the press service of the Gazeta.uz agency stated that the transfer of Humo is 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, UzSAMA stated.

The national payment system 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.

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

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