India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has suggested that BRICS countries collaborate to integrate their digital currencies. Their goal is to make International payments easier, faster and cheaper. BRICS include Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and later, some additional countries, such as the UAE, Iran, and Indonesia, joined.
Sources say the RBI proposed linking its CBDCs at the 2026 BRICS summit, hosted by India, to simplify international trade and tourism payments. This would help businesses and travellers avoid intermediaries and the U.S. dollar.
This proposal comes amid rising global tensions and U.S. assertiveness on trade. President Trump claimed that the BRICS opposes U.S. interests and warned that tariffs could be imposed to reduce the use of the dollar in trade. The RBI stated that it aims to improve efficiency and promote the Indian rupee’s global use, not to decrease reliance on the dollar. While no BRICS country has fully launched digital currencies, all are testing through pilots. India began testing its e-rupee in late 2022 with 7 million users, and China is expanding its digital yuan for international payments.
Even if the idea has many benefits, it also poses significant challenges. For the plan to succeed, the BRICS countries should agree on the same rules, technology and ways to handle trade imbalances, such as when one country sells much more than it buys. One solution is that central banks can exchange currencies and settle payments with each other on a weekly or monthly basis.
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Earlier, India and Russia tried to trade using their own currencies instead of the U.S. dollar, but it did not work well because Russia collected a large amount of Indian rupees that it could not easily spend. Even so, India believes that central bank-issued digital currencies are safer and more trustworthy than private transactions, which it believes could damage financial stability and weaken the country’s payment systems.
