The PSB noted the interest of African countries in the A7 cross-border settlement system

Representatives of the A7 company, established by PSB in 2024, held meetings with the leadership of a number of African countries, where the cross-border settlement system aroused great interest, said Mikhail Dorofeev, Deputy Chairman of the bank.

Speaking at the Russia-Africa business session on the sidelines of SPIEF 2026, Dorofeev noted that A7 entered the African market with working technological solutions. "A7 offers any African state to use its national currency not only to make payments to Russia, but also to China and India," he stressed.

Dorofeev added that 1.5 billion people live in Africa today, and this figure could double by 2050. Over the past 10 years, the continent's economy has grown 1.5 times and, according to some estimates, Africa will account for up to a sixth of global GDP in the future. This creates significant potential for development, which is why A7 has opened two offices on the continent — in Harare and in Lagos, explained the Deputy Chairman of the PSB.

According to him, before the settlement issues were perceived by the banking community as an everyday work task. "When we talked about banks, we always went into intrabank work with risks, borrowers and lending, almost without paying attention to the calculations themselves," said Dorofeev. But when the country found itself cut off from the international settlement infrastructure, the question arose about an alternative system, he added. According to him, the A7 company solved this problem with the help of stablecoins. Thus, the ruble-denominated stablecoin A7A5 has become widespread, whose share in the global market of stablecoins not pegged to the dollar has reached 45%.