Russia’s Richest Woman Gets Putin’s Nod to Build Payments System

Tatyana Bakalchuk made billions selling everything from brooms to bridal gowns on her online marketplace. Now Russia’s richest woman is making a surprise pivot: to helping insulate the economy from sanctions by building an alternative to the global payment system major Russian banks were excluded from.

Bakalchuk’s Wildberries — Russia’s answer to Amazon — is starting a venture with Russ Group, the nation’s biggest outdoor advertiser, to build a digital market to help small and medium-sized businesses promote and export their products, the company said this week. They also plan to create a payments platform that may offer a substitute for the dominant cross-border network, known as Swift, according to two people close to the Kremlin who declined to be identified.