BRICS Pay

BRICS Pay is a payments initiative discussed within the BRICS grouping (originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, expanded in 2024 to include additional members such as the UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia) aimed at building a shared infrastructure for settling cross-border transactions in local currencies. The concept was first floated publicly by the BRICS Business Council around 2018–2019 and has since been revisited at successive BRICS summits as part of broader de-dollarisation discussions.

In practice, BRICS Pay is best understood as a framework rather than a single operational system. Proposals have included a unified digital payments gateway (sometimes envisaged as a mobile wallet or QR-code system linking domestic payment rails such as Russia's Mir, India's UPI, China's CIPS/UnionPay, and Brazil's Pix), as well as longer-term ideas around a BRICS settlement currency or a blockchain-based clearing platform. None of these components has yet been launched as a fully integrated multilateral system.

Political momentum increased after 2022, when G7 sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine — including disconnection of major Russian banks from SWIFT and the freezing of central bank reserves — sharpened member states' interest in payment channels less exposed to Western jurisdiction. The 2023 Johannesburg summit and the 2024 Kazan summit hosted by Russia both featured calls for accelerating work on BRICS payment infrastructure, though India and Brazil have publicly distanced themselves from any project framed explicitly as anti-dollar.

Key obstacles include:

• Divergent monetary policies and capital controls among members
• Limited convertibility of several BRICS currencies
• China's reluctance to fully internationalise the renminbi
• Secondary sanctions risk for banks transacting with sanctioned entities

Analysts generally treat BRICS Pay as a signalling mechanism and incremental project rather than a near-term replacement for SWIFT or dollar clearing.