BRICS is exploring new ways for member countries to move money across borders, including a proposal to connect their central-bank digital currencies. But can the group really change how international trade works?
When two countries trade with each other, the transaction can involve much more than simply sending money from one bank account to another. There are currencies to convert, banks to connect, payment systems to navigate and, in many cases, an international currency such as the US dollar somewhere in the process.
BRICS wants to make some of that process easier. The question is whether the group can build a system that genuinely changes the way its members trade, or whether its ambitions will run into the realities of different currencies, financial systems and political interests.
What is BRICS?
BRICS began with Brazil, Russia, India and China before South Africa joined in 2011. The group has since expanded and now has 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
It is not a single economic union like the European Union, and it does not have a common currency or a central government. Instead, BRICS is primarily a forum where its members coordinate on economic, financial, political and development issues. One of the areas receiving increasing attention is cross-border payments.
BRICS is no longer simply a group of emerging economies meeting to discuss common interests. Its agenda now covers trade, finance, technology, energy, agriculture and global economic governance, giving the expanded group a larger role in discussions about how the global economy should work.
Why does moving money across borders matter?
Imagine a company in India buying goods from a business in Brazil. The buyer needs to pay the seller, but the two companies may use different currencies and different banking systems. Converting the money and moving it across borders can add costs, delays and additional financial intermediaries.
The same issue becomes even more important for countries conducting billions of dollars in trade. BRICS has therefore been discussing ways to make payments between its members faster, cheaper and more accessible.
The group’s 2025 Rio de Janeiro declaration called for continued work on its BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative and greater interoperability between members’ payment systems, with the aim of supporting trade and investment flows. That does not necessarily mean creating an entirely new global financial system. It can simply mean making existing systems work better with one another.
New digital-currency idea
The latest development takes that idea a step further. As India chairs BRICS in 2026, it is pushing a proposal to link the central-bank digital currencies of BRICS countries to make cross-border payments easier.
The proposal is expected to be discussed at the BRICS leaders’ summit in New Delhi on September 12–13. The idea is intended to make international transactions faster and easier, rather than immediately replace the US dollar. A Central-Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), is essentially a digital form of a country’s official currency issued by its central bank.
The important point is that it is not the same thing as Bitcoin or another privately created cryptocurrency. If different countries could make their official digital currencies work more easily with one another, businesses could potentially move money across borders with fewer steps. That is the theory. Making it work in practice is much harder.
Could this reduce dependence on the dollar?
This is where the BRICS discussion becomes politically sensitive. The US dollar remains deeply embedded in international trade and finance. It is widely used for cross-border transactions, held by central banks as a reserve currency and used to price major commodities.
BRICS members have nevertheless been exploring greater use of their own currencies. A 2024 BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors’ statement supported further work on local currencies and cross-border payment instruments, while emphasising faster, lower-cost and more efficient transactions.
That is different from saying BRICS is about to abandon the dollar. In fact, India’s current proposal is specifically being presented as a way to make payments easier rather than as an immediate attempt to replace the dollar. The distinction matters. A payment system can reduce the need for dollars in some transactions without eliminating the dollar from global finance.
There is already a real-world example
Some BRICS countries are already experimenting with greater use of local currencies. Russia said in September that 96 percent of its bilateral trade with India was being settled in roubles and rupees, showing that large-scale trade does not necessarily have to be settled entirely in dollars.
But one successful bilateral arrangement is very different from creating a payment system that works smoothly across 11 countries. BRICS is a much more complicated group, with countries that have very different economies, currencies, financial regulations and political relationships.
So what is stopping it?
The biggest challenge may not be technology. It is trust. For a shared or interconnected payment system to work, countries need to agree on technical standards, regulations, security arrangements and ways to handle differences between their currencies.
Currency imbalances can also become a problem. If one country consistently sells far more to another than it buys, the two sides need mechanisms for managing those differences. Latest reports suggest that currency-swap arrangements could be necessary before a broader CBDC linkage could operate effectively.
There are political obstacles too. India and China have strategic tensions, while the financial relationships between some other BRICS members are complicated by sanctions and geopolitical disputes. A payment network may be built with technology, but it ultimately depends on countries agreeing to trust one another.
What does this mean for UAE?
The story is particularly relevant to the UAE because it is one of the 11 BRICS members. The UAE joined the expanded BRICS group alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, while Indonesia subsequently became a member.
The UAE is also already part of the wider movement towards faster cross-border digital payments. India’s UPI payment system, for example, is currently operational in the UAE and several other countries. UPI is live in 11 countries and processed 24.51 billion transactions worth around $314 billion in August 2026.
For businesses and consumers, developments like these could eventually make international payments feel less complicated. A future in which a company can pay an overseas supplier almost as easily as it pays a domestic one would have practical consequences for trade, tourism, remittances and cross-border commerce.
Is BRICS creating a new currency?
Not yet. And this is one of the most important points to understand. There have been discussions and speculation about a possible BRICS currency, but that is not what the current Indian proposal is about.
The immediate focus is on payment connectivity, finding ways for countries to use existing or emerging payment systems more efficiently. That is a much more achievable goal than creating a completely new currency used by 11 countries. It also means the change, if it happens, may be less dramatic than the phrase ‘BRICS currency’ suggests.
A gradual change rather than a financial revolution
BRICS does not need to replace the global financial system to change international trade. If its members can make payments faster, reduce transaction costs and increase the use of local currencies in certain transactions, businesses may gradually have more choices in how they conduct cross-border trade.
But there is a long distance between discussing a payment system and creating one that can operate reliably across a group as diverse as BRICS. The September summit could therefore be less about unveiling a finished alternative and more about determining whether the members can agree on the next step.
Could BRICS really change global trade?
The answer is possibly, but probably gradually. The more realistic future is not a sudden world in which the dollar disappears and a BRICS currency takes its place. Instead, international trade could become more fragmented, with businesses and countries using a wider mix of currencies and payment systems depending on who they trade with.
For BRICS, that may be the real opportunity. The group does not necessarily need to build a new financial world from scratch. It may only need to make it easier for its members to operate within the existing one on their own terms.
And if digital currencies, local payment networks and interoperable systems make that possible, the way countries trade could begin to change, one transaction at a time.
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