A7 International, a Russian settlement system, is set to present a new cross border payments service on 13 October. Customers pay foreign invoices in Tether (USDT), and the supplier on the other end gets an ordinary SWIFT transfer in whatever currency it asked for.
It’s pitched mainly at foreign trade companies, though individuals can use it too. The fee is a flat 0.3%. In short, a USDT payment going in is matched with a regular bank transfer going out.
A7 was set up in 2024 with PJSC Bank PSB. Reports on the launch say it’s building payment links across more than 100 countries, has 15,000 clients and handles roughly 2,000 transactions a day. In 2025 it processed about 19% of Russian companies’ cross border trade settlements. It also deals in digital financial assets and promissory notes, and picked up an AA(RU) credit rating with a stable outlook in October 2025.
Washington is watching closely. The US Treasury has designated the A7 network a transnational criminal organisation over alleged sanctions evasion. FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, has proposed curbs on payments involving A7 sub agents and put out an alert on suspicious activity tied to it.
A7 CEO Ilan Shor and PSB chairman Petr Fradkov are due to present the service.
Banks outside Russia should pay attention to how this is built. The supplier just sees a normal SWIFT payment. The stablecoin leg sits on the payer’s side, out of view, which leaves the receiving bank and its correspondents to work out who’s really behind the money.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: The Stablecoin Leg Stays Hidden
The service cuts the payment in two. A sanctioned network runs the USDT side, and only a clean bank transfer reaches the foreign seller. Banks have already been told that sanctions now reach the institutions moving a payment, not just the buyer and seller, so a tidy SWIFT message won’t cut it on its own. Next up: how US authorities react, and whether banks receiving these transfers start asking harder questions about payers tied to Russian trade.
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