The state-backed payment network A7 moves over $100 billion annually in Russian foreign trade, utilizing cryptocurrency like the ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5, artificial intelligence, and shell networks to bypass Western financial isolation. Founded by Ilan Shor with Russia's PSB bank, it runs parallel to shifting geopolitical influence in regions like the Persian Gulf and Africa.
The Rise of A7
• Handled nearly 20% of Russian foreign-trade payments.
• Founded in 2024 by Moldovan citizen Ilan Shor and Promsvyazbank (PSB).
• Relies on the A7A5 stablecoin and alternative trade settlement rails.
• Targeted by U.S., UK, and European Union sanctions.
Global Geopolitical Shifts
• Operates alongside alternative shadow-banking and digital asset channels used by Iran and Russia.
• Expands transaction frameworks via hubs in Central Asia, the UAE, and parts of Africa.
“The Kremlin has a high-tech superweapon to neutralize Western sanctions.
It is called A7. The state-backed payment network moves money in and out of Russia, defying U.S. and European efforts to isolate Moscow from the global-banking system. A7 helps Russia pay for everything from military-drone parts to luxury cars to imported fruit, using a mix of cryptocurrency and bank transactions while disguising its real purpose with shell companies and fake AI-generated invoices, researchers say.
Behind its rise is A7's founder, Ilan Shor. The businessman, who is married to a Russian pop singer, now lives near Moscow. A boyish-looking 39-year-old, Shor goes by "Travolta" in A7's internal company chat, according to leaked messages circulated by hackers last year.
Representatives of A7 and Shor didn't respond to requests to comment.
Founded less than two years ago, A7 says it handles nearly 20% of payments in Russian foreign trade, or more than $100 billion annually. President Vladimir Putin gave it his blessing last year, taking part by video link in the opening of an A7 branch office.
Now, A7 is planning to take its services global and fulfill Putin's vision of an alternative financial system outside the control of Washington or Brussels.
Having recently opened its first offices abroad, in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, A7 says it is weighing expansion into Latin America and the Middle East. Executives don't hide their desire to serve countries seen as pariahs in the West.
"Before, the Western system essentially enslaved the whole financial world, allowing the West to flip a switch at any time and stop any country from being able to make payments," Shor told TASS, the Russian state news agency, in July. "We give companies and countries freedom, because our system is immune to sanctions."
The U.S., U.K. and European Union have all sanctioned A7. But analysts say the payment network has adapted to Western pressure, and it touts its resilience amid the sanctions.
In June, during Russia's annual economic forum in St. Petersburg, A7's stand featured a giant roly-poly toy with the company's logo.
After keeping a low profile in its early days, A7 embarked on a mass advertising campaign. Digital billboards in Moscow hype its low rates for sending money abroad, a bid to market its services to smaller companies and individuals, like a sort of Western Union focused on international money transfers.
One of Russia's most popular singers, Filipp Kirkorov, sang a ditty about A7's defiance of European sanctions in one promotional video.
A7's website demonstrates its reach by showing flags of dozens of countries, including the U.S., China and Iran.
A7 has benefited from rapid growth in Russian trade with China, which has surged since the start of the events in Ukraine as Moscow has drawn closer to Beijing. Some 65% of the payment network's volume takes place in Chinese yuan, according to a presentation circulated by A7 last year.
On its website, the company touts its ability to transmit funds to China in four hours.
In 2024, Shor teamed up with Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank that focuses on the defense sector, to launch A7.
The bank, now called PSB, was among the first Russian lenders to be sanctioned by the West and cut off from the Swift network after the start of events in Ukraine. Swift, a Belgium-based messaging system used by thousands of banks worldwide, is the lifeblood for much of international commerce.
Initially, Russia's corporate registry showed Shor owned 51% of A7 while PSB owned the rest. The registry still shows the bank's 49% stake but hides the majority owner. Russian law allows companies to obscure ownership data to avoid foreign sanctions.
To skirt sanctions, A7 moves money through a network of shell companies in places such as Kyrgyzstan, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Open Source Centre, a London-based research group that was spun out of RUSI, the U.K.'s oldest defense-oriented think tank. Such shell companies have credible-looking websites and accounts at local banks, but are secretly controlled by A7 staff in Moscow, OSC wrote in a June report.
Using its shell companies' access to the banking system, A7 can make payments on behalf of clients in Russia.
To avoid raising red flags at the banks, A7 uses artificial intelligence to create fake invoices that obscure the real purpose of the transactions, OSC said.
The forgeries have featured realistic-looking stamps generated with OpenAI, the research group found.
OpenAI has found no evidence that A7 is using its models, a person familiar with the matter said.
On March 11, 2025, a Kyrgyz front company for A7 paid a Chinese supplier about $1 million for parts used in drones -- but the fake invoice showed that the payment was for auto-body polish, child car seats and other car accessories, according to OSC.
The group's report was based on a trove of A7 files and chat logs that were released by hackers last September.
OSC said it corroborated information from the hack with customs records, court filings and other sources. A7 hasn't commented on the hack.
Crypto is the other main tool that A7 uses, allowing it to bypass banks entirely, researchers say.
"Crypto in A7's operations functions as a channel for actors who have been excluded from conventional banking -- and have few alternatives," TRM Labs, a U.S.-based blockchain analytics firm, said in a report in June.
The company's ambitions shouldn't be dismissed, said Elise Thomas, an investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience, a nonprofit research group based in London and backed in part by the U.K. government.
"Reaching the level of a Swift equivalent would be very ambitious," said Thomas, who has studied A7. "But never say never. It's a threat worth taking seriously."” [1]
1. Russia's Star Startup Is a Sanctions Buster. Osipovich, Alexander. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Aug 2026: A1.
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