Rosbank, the former Russian branch of Societe Generale bought out by sanctioned oligarch Vladimir Potanin as he rebuilds his banking empire, has become one of the bidders for fintech company Tochka ahead of its auction on July 10, Kommersant daily reported citing unnamed financial market sources.

Reportedly, Qiwi e-payment system and Sovcombank have dropped out of the race to buy the asset. But despite the lower number of bidders, Kommersant sources expect the starting price to increase 1.3-1.5 times, up to RUB30bn-RUB35bn ($390mn).

The remaining bidders, reportedly along with Potanin’s Rosbank, are Alfa Bank and Vladislav Filev (previously he joined the board of directors of Tochka’s minority shareholder Catalytic People). Previous reports suggested that Tinkoff Bank, Uralsib Bank and Yandex internet major were also bidding for Tochka.

Tochka provides one-stop-shop online financial services to over 0.5mn SMEs and entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2018 as a joint venture with e-payment system Qiwi (50%), Otkritie Bank (40%), with another 10% minus 1 share retained by Tochka's management, led by Boris Diakonov and Eduard Panteleev.

In September 2021 troubled Qiwi lost its online betting revenue stream and sold its 40% stake in Tochka to Otkritie for RUB5bn, with the whole business valued at RUB11bn. In March 2022 Otkritie sold 90% of the shares to state-controlled Trust Bank.

Trust (Trast) Bank, a “bad” assets bank bailed out by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) in the 2019 banking sector clean-up, is now reportedly putting Tochka up for sale for double the valuation for which it bought the fintech runner-up.