In September 2025, a lecture “Jurisdictional Aspects of E-Commerce” was recorded at Moscow Digital School. During the event, Ivan Yermokhin, Researcher at the Gaidar Institute's International Best Practices Analysis Department, discussed how Russian companies are structuring international payments amid sanctions and limited access to traditional payment channels.
After 2022, foreign economic activity participants faced restrictions on international payments, but four main options remain:
- Transactions through banks that have retained access to SWIFT.
- Settlements through branches of Russian banks in friendly countries.
- Use of the Russian financial messaging system (SPFS), to which some foreign banks are already connected.
- Settlements in digital currencies and digital financial assets (DFAs).
It is DFA that are becoming an alternative to traditional settlements. Ivan Ermokhin described two schemes for the possible use of DFA: the first requires similar legislation in the counterparty's country, the second requires the participation of a payment agent who takes on the exchange and support of the transaction. He also noted the actual use of cryptocurrencies in international trade, despite the ban on their use as a means of payment in Russia: here, intermediaries-payment agents play a key role, conducting transactions through banks and crypto exchanges in different jurisdictions.