UK doubles maximum sanctions penalty to 100% and issues nationwide warning on Russian payment agent A7

Britain’s Treasury has raised the maximum penalty for sanctions breaches and moved against Russian payment agent A7. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks handling cross-border flows, the message is simple: the UK is pushing harder on both enforcement and the networks that help sanctioned actors move money.

1. UK Treasury chief John Healey called on allies to step up pressure on Russia and said the government is doubling the maximum fine for sanctions violations. Under the new rule, the UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) can now levy up to 100% of the value of a sanctions breach, instead of 50%.
2. The Treasury said the change is meant to “further strengthen the deterrent effect of the UK sanctions regime and support more effective enforcement.” In practice, that means higher financial exposure for any firm caught facilitating prohibited transactions, whether directly or through weak controls on correspondent flows, intermediaries, or nested relationships.
3. British authorities also issued a nationwide warning against the Russian payment agent A7. The Treasury said the warning is intended to “support the private sector in combating sanctions evasion” and to impose losses on Russia, while disrupting “Kremlin-backed networks” that try to bypass international financial and trade sanctions through a “complex network of financial structures spanning multiple jurisdictions.”
4. A7 has been in the spotlight throughout 2025. Russia launched an official stablecoin for cross-border settlements that year, and the A7A5 cryptocurrency received digital financial asset status. In the same year, A7 was sanctioned by both the European Union and the United States.
5. According to Financial Times, 19% of all international transactions sent from Russia went through A7. The company has said its cross-border transfers are carried out without using SWIFT, which is exactly the sort of claim compliance teams tend to treat as a prompt for more questions, not fewer.