Vladimir Potanin’s Interros announced about buying UCS (United Card Services) processing firm. The deal has already been agreed on with the Federal Antimonopoly Service and Bank of Russia.

“Interros group has bought United Card Services (UCS) Joint-Stock Company,” RBC cites the news release.

It also said that the deal is aimed at “the development of banking business.” The company plans to revitalize the development of UCS services, in particular in the field of integrated offers for small and medium-sized businesses.

Egor Krivosheya, head of research at the SKOLKOVO-NES, said the purchase of UCS by Interros may be agreed with the group’s strategic plans. He explained that now the purchase of assets is relatively inexpensive, and this is a unique opportunity for owners of investment funds.

In addition, in the light of Interros’ previous deals - the purchase of a stake in TCS Group and Rosbank - Potanin’s company could create serious competition in the financial market, Krivosheya said. He noted that UCS, as a collective acquirer, focuses on small and medium-sized banks that do not want to compete with large acquirers from leading systemically important banks.

UCS is part of Global Payments Inc., the American group of companies. According to the Nilson Report, based on 2020 results, Global Payments was ranked fifth in the world ranking of the largest acquirers. The company processed 16.4 billion payments worldwide.

These groups were not singled out separately in Russia, however, the largest acquirers in the Russian market are Sberbank, VTB Tinkoff Bank, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, Russian Standard and Promsvyazbank. For comparison: Sberbank processed 30.3 billion payments in 2020, taking third place in the ranking.

The report on 2022 first-quarter results of Global Payments released on May 2 says the company has decided to pull out of Russia.

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