Central Bank of Russia holding meetings with potential buyers of shares in NPCS, ready to sell up to 5% to single buyer - sources

MOSCOW. June 29 (Interfax) - The Central Bank of Russia has begun preliminary talks with market participants regarding the possibility of participating in the partial privatization of the National Payment Card System (NPCS), three financial market sources told Interfax.

One of the sources said that the regulator is merely testing the waters and holding meetings to gather preliminary opinions from major banks and large tech companies on the possibility of participating in the company's privatization. Another source confirmed a meeting between representatives of major banks and the regulator's management to discuss the sale of a stake in NPCS. The source declined to provide further details.

Another source told Interfax that the Central Bank is prepared to sell up to 5% of the shares in NPCS directly to one investor. The potential sale of shares in the company itself, rather than its services, is under discussion, and the deal could occur in 2027 under favorable market conditions.

Interfax has sent a request to the Central Bank.

The Central Bank in late September 2025 published a report in which the regulator announced it would evaluate the feasibility and mechanisms for transferring several NPCS services to private sector management. Possible scenarios included the sale of a minority stake or a spin-off of several services.

Alla Bakina, head of the Central Bank's payment system department, said that the regulator was discussing the sale of a stake in the NPCS with market participants.

"I can say that we have not abandoned our plan to sell a portion of the NPCS stake to market participants. We already have this legally available, and we are in discussions with market participants," Bakina told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

"Discussions are ongoing, and consultations are being held with market participants. It is too soon to comment on agreements, but I believe that we will have some information to share," Bakina said.

"This topic has not been put on hold or suspended. We have not abandoned what was announced in our advisory report. Our goal is to engage market participants in the development of the national payment system, so we are pursuing this path," Bakina added.

The Central Bank has been required to retain a controlling stake of at least 50% +1 share when selling a minority stake in NPCS to market participants. A second possible option is to spin off some of NPCS' services into a separate company, followed by corporatization or sale of the company or its stake to market participants. The Central Bank did not specify in the report which specific services these would be.

The Russian government created NPCS in 2014 after the imposition of a series of sanctions against Russia. NPCS announced the issuance of the first Mir cards in December 2015. NPCS also processes transactions for cards from the Visa and Mastercard international payment systems, which simultaneously announced suspension of their respective operations on the Russian market in March 2022 owing to the Ukraine situation. The Central Bank is the sole shareholder in NPCS.